


Dracula Has a Mullet ~ Epilogue

by Pondermoniums



Series: Dracula Has a Mullet [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Additional Tags to Come, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Art Galleries, Bathroom Sex, Billy Can Cook, Canon-Typical Homophobia, Cheating, Dancing, Epilogue, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Happy Ending, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pining, Switching, Vampire Billy, Vampire Bites, bit of a slow burn, post-season 3, vampire powers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:36:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24947761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pondermoniums/pseuds/Pondermoniums
Summary: "The first week was a surprise. Confusion, mostly. Billy was just…gone."After the Mind Flayer's comeback and defeat in Hawkins, Indiana, Steve and Billy move to Chicago. Because things are going well. Really well. As well as they can go for a two-year relationship, and one of you is a vampire and the other is so stupid in love that...when Steve realizes Billy hasn't been home for a couple of days, it leaves him winded, broken, and put on a difficult path to figure out the rest of his life. Senior year sucks, man, just like it did in high school.~ Epilogue story for Dracula Has a Mullet. Can be read separately, but makes references to previous story. ~
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Dracula Has a Mullet [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805488
Comments: 4
Kudos: 47





	1. Senior

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. I put WAY too many weeks of my life into this when it's the epilogue of a story that's not even finished yet. So feel free to hang out for uploads to [Dracula Has a Mullet~](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23530096/chapters/56474722) if you wish, or I've reached a nice stopping point with this epilogue. As of right now, it's in 6 or so parts. It's not actually finished, but I'll pace my uploads so that, if I get back to writing this, I'll update the chapter number and tags.
> 
> There are SPOILERS for the main story, but you probably figured that out. Hope you enjoy! :)

The first week was a surprise. Confusion, mostly. Billy was just…gone.

Of course Steve asked around. Went to Billy’s workplace, went to other places he _might have_ worked at if he’d grown tired of the place or the people. It wasn’t unlike Billy to change daily routines without warning, but it also wasn’t like Billy to change things he enjoyed.

Confusion turned into annoyance. Why hadn’t he called? Or…well, _anything_.

By the end of month, Steve was officially losing it. It may have been two years ago, but the last time Billy went missing, he was face-deep in a frozen quarry. If Billy had to deal with a human, he had his vampy perks to either make them leave, or straight up kill them. It didn’t necessarily mean he couldn’t be taken advantage of—Chicago was still _Chicago_ —but it was extremely unlikely.

Which left the Upside-Down, but there hadn’t been so much as a bad dream in Will Byers’ head since, and he was the barometer for such things.

Then Steve found a note on the door of their shared apartment: _I’m not dead. Don’t worry about me._

Steve was pretty sure he fell asleep standing up, holding that folded piece of paper. So just like that, over two years down the drain.

The year after that was…hard. Really hard. More times than Steve could count, he considered going to the Chicago police, or talking Dustin’s ear off, begging him to contact Ellie.

But he knew Billy’s handwriting, which he’d taped to their— _their_ —headboard. So he could see it when the walls began to faze around him.

Eventually, when enough time had passed and the heartbreak, anger, and confusion began to fade, Steve considered the panic attacks to be withdrawal symptoms. He’d certainly had enough of Billy’s venom to alter his brain forever. He bought a book on addiction, but after flipping through it a dozen times, properly trying to read it and giving up halfway through, he threw the thing across the room and buried his tears in a pillow.

Because if Billy changed what he didn’t like, then Steve had to face reality.

Over two years with Billy, and one without.

The year had its nasty parts. Steve didn’t fall into people’s beds, but when he was finally ready to drown himself in a stiff drink in a nightclub intent on making him go deaf, he sometimes got into fights with people who wanted him in their beds. The queer community could certainly be just as harsh as it was welcoming. And then there were the girls who were down for a make-out, and then threw their boyfriends at him when he left before buying them a drink. Eventually he had to do his nose a favor and stop going out at night.

Here he was, a senior in college and single. A single senior. Again. He didn’t like this pattern.

The year had its good parts. He stopped swinging between neutrals and super lows. He had highs again. The kids at work helped with that. One of the little girls had convinced herself that Steve was her husband and always asked if he’d eaten breakfast. One of the boys gave him a flower. Steve kept an eye on him, just to make sure none of the little shits broke his spirit before he had the brains and life experience to recover.

His grades were actually good. They weren’t for a while, but one of his teachers caught him in the campus library, staring at nothing but stuck on sharp smiles and eyes the color of summer waters.

“Who’s the heartbreaker?”

He tore his gaze from the windows—or walls, since the whole place was made of glass and beams. “Huh?”

The way she smiled reminded him of Joyce Byers. “I guess you haven’t noticed, honey, but you’ve been failing my class all semester. You might imagine my surprise, seeing an A+ work, only for the student to suddenly ghost every assignment afterward.”

“You gave me a B-.”

“Because I’m a hard ass, but it was still top notch work.”

Steve sighed, picking up one of his pens just to have something to do. “Sorry.”

“I’ve asked around, and your other teachers confirm you’re a zombie in class, but you look alive during your internship. What happens between then and here that helps you?”

She let him have his time to choose whether or not to answer, and even further to find it. “It’s not about me there. It’s easy to not think about me there.”

“It’s easier to not think about them.”

Steve looked up. Her eyes were kind. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said quietly. “There’s no dramatic breakup story, no long build up of arguments. They just left without telling me anything. Except—” He let the pen fall out of his hand so he didn’t throw it across the library. “—a goddamn note so I didn’t file a missing persons report.”

Her lips parted under an incredulous frown. “That’s how they left it? Sounds rather immature.”

He sent her a half-hearted glare. “Yeah well, neither of us is really shining in the maturity department.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re not suffering from the lack of closure. It also sounds like it’s not your fault.”

Steve absorbed that and something in his face relaxed. “What?”

She shrugged. “They leave without _any_ explanation? Take it from me, people are plenty eager to let the other person know why they’re leaving.”

Steve shifted in his seat, leaning back for the first time. “But if it’s not me…why wouldn’t they talk to me about what’s happening with them?”

She gently shook her head. “I don’t know. Thing is, it’s not for you to know either. If they left, that’s their decision. It’s not your fault they didn’t tell you they were leaving, and it’s not your fault for moving on.”

He didn’t reply, and she didn’t press for him to. After a while, she pushed her hands on the table to stand up. Shouldering her bag once more, she said, “Both of my kids are in your internship.”

Steve blinked up at her like he was trying to blink through rain falling over his face. “They are?” He realized her name might not necessarily match her kids’. “Which ones?”

“Eugene and Omara. Or should I say, Mrs. Harrington.”

A reluctant smile lifted one side of Steve’s mouth. He wagged the pen back and forth across one of his open books. He listened while his teacher said, “You can tell a lot about a person by how they navigate kids, Steve. You’re a good person. Just do your homework, alright? I can only keep the registrar off your paperwork for so long.”

So he did. It amounted to a semester of C’s and a severely plummeted GPA, but the professors didn’t hold that against him. If anything, they threw more opportunities at him. Maybe it was his reinstated commitment. Maybe it was one of them vouching for him. Either way, Steve stockpiled a schedule of everything from modeling for the photography students, to being teacher’s assistant to the entire education department.

The art students were definitely his favorites. Low maintenance, high emotions, and plenty of weed to go ‘round, Steve had found his kind of people. Not to say that his former friends didn’t come back to him, but it was senior year, and they were getting on with their lives.

The art kids painted things for him. Something called “cubism” replaced one of Billy’s posters. Steve thought it looked like a clarinet player instead of a cube, but he liked it. Slowly, his apartment began to fill up with new things: a record player the prime pothead couldn’t bother retrieving, as well as various records his friends gifted him to supplement the CD’s Billy had left behind.

“You can’t be listening to that fluorescent plastic,” declared a guy named Peter, who sported an impressive ginger Afro. “Vinyl, my dude. Vinyl. It’s heavy because it’s quality.”

Two of the internship kids had given him their bottles of layered, glittery sand after a particularly chaotic craft day. And then one of the seniors—Rebecca, who definitely raided her mom’s closet, if the hippie scarves around her head were any indication—presented him with a pile of fabric on his birthday.

Steve had looked at it while scratching a charcoal stick aimlessly across some borrowed paper. His art friends loved his participation. _Vibe and grind, man! Just move with your feelings!_ Steve was all wrung out of feelings. But here came Rebecca, presenting him with a handmade towel.

“Uh…thanks…for the…what is it?”

“It’s a tapestry, you nimrod!” She held onto a hidden pole while the rest fell open to reveal thickly braided, wonky stripes in various colors. They looked like the wavy lines left over on the sand from waves. “I had the shop boys clean off a stick of driftwood! Just set this on some nails, and it’s ready to replace that sad, red curtain you have.”

Billy’s curtain. It faded over the years, but Steve had liked Billy’s interest in color and pattern. The guy chewed him out for stripes but then threw _that_ on the wall. But it was pretty, and a little bit rugged…and just as tired as Steve felt.

“I love it. Thanks.” He stood to take the wonky pole and roll the tapestry up.

Rebecca stood out of his way, but her hands took a while to fall back to her sides. “Steve, it’s your birthday. Show a little more enthusiasm.”

The whole studio reacted with various forms of, “It’s your birthday? Dude!”

“We gotta go to the bar!”

“Can we bring a cake into a bar?”

“Try and stop me.”

Steve smiled as he set the tapestry on his table. “How’d you know it’s my birthday?”

She grinned. “I saw you walking yesterday with a balloon crown on your head, and that massive card.”

His internship had thrown him a party. They kids were exuberant, and in their sugar high, drew all over a birthday card that was nearly as tall as him. “Oh, you liked my pope hat?”

Rebecca laughed. “It did look like a pope hat, you’re right.”

But he looked at the tapestry again. “You couldn’t have done all this last night, though.”

She looked like a deer in the headlights, caught. “I might’ve asked around for the date a while back.”

That’s how Steve learned Rebecca liked him.

The get-together at the nearest hookah bar was hardly different from any Friday night, but this time the owner gifted him a pot brownie with a candle in it. “You didn’t have to do this,” Steve grinned after blowing it out.

“Girls come in because they like you, and boys follow them in. You bring me business, it’s the least I can do. That being said, sit outside next time.”

Steve and his friends guffawed and shared the brownie. Bottles of wine passed around just as readily, and when conversation settled into a lively hum around him, Steve stood to leave. He was tired of glancing at the entrance. Tired of waiting for someone who wasn’t coming.

His friends were too busy celebrating to notice him leaving. That’s all right by him. Chicago was nice at night; not as bustling as New York, sure, but the cold, early spring air had the balminess of warmer days. The concrete gritted underneath his shoes, wet from a recent rain. Boozy and floating, he could spend the rest of his birthday alone—

“Steve! Wait!”

He rotated on the sidewalk to see Rebecca jogging to catch up. “Do people ever call you Reebok?”

Steve laughed at her disgusted gape and wrinkled nose. “Ugh, ew. They might, if it wasn’t as gross as running. Now I’m glad I never got into sports, if that’s the caliber of the nicknames. Where are you going?”

“Home,” Steve replied as they fell into step together. “Laundry.”

“Laundry? You’re going to do chores on your birthday?”

He nodded, his voice soft with the comfort of a weight possibly, _finally_ lifting. “Yeah. I want to do laundry.” He wanted to hang his new tapestry and wash the bed sheets again. Wash a little more of Billy out of his life.

“Do you want company for that?”

Steve almost said no, but in a challenge to himself, agreed, “Sure.”

It wasn’t Rebecca’s first time in his place, but he usually only allowed larger gatherings at his apartment. Having multiple people around made it easier to hold himself together.

She locked on to the package from his mother that he’d half unwrapped in the living room. She held up the black wine bottle. “This looks fancy.”

“You can open it,” he said, retreating to the bedroom to tear off the sheets.

“You sure? I think that brownie got me going enough that I should eat something instead.”

“Help yourself.”

Rebecca threw together the biggest pile of nachos Steve had ever seen in his life. While the bedclothes went through their cycle, he poured the wine and they dined like gods. When Steve went to transfer the sheets, Rebecca followed him to converse, “You’ve got a nice set of knives in there.”

He paused, and then said dryly, “Thanks.”

They were Billy’s. Leave it to Billy to have an overpriced knife set, with the stones to sharpen them and everything. But after Steve gave him shit for his diet of cigarettes and beer— _You’re never going to keep those muscles if you’re washing me down with smoke and hops_ —Billy showed him up by learning how to cook, and cook well. Never mind the fact that Billy feasted on Steve after they ate, in more ways than one. Never mind how _good_ Billy smelled once the nicotine finally washed out of his clothes—

He could feel Rebecca’s eyes on him. “They’re not yours, are they?”

He remained behind the doors of the stacked washer and dryer. What little shields they were. “They are now.”

Rebecca nodded, and left it at that. She helped him remake the bed, and didn’t look let down when he offered her the guest bedroom. Therein began the regular occasions of Rebecca staying over.

To be honest, it was nice. The cushion of someone else in the apartment became an anchor he didn’t know he needed. He might’ve asked her to move in if senior year weren’t a countdown to who-knows-what, and inviting someone to move in who’s crushing on you seemed inconsiderate.

It’s not that Steve didn’t like her. Just the opposite: Rebecca was easy to get along with. She was smart in all the ways he wasn’t, but she navigated the world in a relaxed mindset. Her idea of a good time banked on a bottle of wine and a record player. She always had paint somewhere on her body and the weirdest injuries Steve had ever seen. Only an art student could manage to make a wire go through her palm because of some installation he was too dumb to understand.

“It looks like a space ship,” he said while looking up at it in one of the campus galleries. Technically it didn’t belong to the school, but this one only ever showed student work. A way for students to have real world show casings…sort of.

“It’s the insidious knot of capitalism and the rotting civilization throughout it, both being held together and being killed by the institution,” Rebecca replied in one breath. “It’s hung up high because it’s difficult to reach up and fix it.”

“You should watch more _Star Wars_.”

“This is literally an example of one of _Star Wars_ ’s themes.”

He squinted at her. “You sure?”

She gave an exaggerated nod. “Tyranny, my dude.”

He laughed easily, letting her guide him through the rooms. Basically all their friends were also showing here. Steve wore a blazer and a button-up his mom would be proud of. Rebecca looked pretty in a summer dress Chicago wasn’t ready for. It was as wildly patterned as her scarves but Steve told her she looked nice and meant it.

At the end of the night, when they strolled behind their friends on their way to a celebratory, gallery opening dinner, Rebecca began, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

She glanced at him, but before Steve could decipher why, she asked, “Why don’t you find someone new?”

It doesn’t take long for Steve to answer, “I need to learn how to be single first.”

Rebecca hummed a sound of acknowledgement before she added, “Can I ask something else?”

“While the going’s hot, sure,” he teased.

“Is your ex a guy?”

Steve’s fingers moved inside his jean pockets. “Yeah.” He didn’t know how else to supplement that, so he just repeated quietly, “Yeah.”

The chatter ahead of them filled the space between them until he heard her inhale and utter, “Okay.”

Steve peeked at her. “Don’t get your hopes up. I’ve got exes who are girls too.” He saw her head quickly turn to him in his peripheral. “But don’t _not_ get your hopes up either.”

She giggled. “I understand. Thanks for being honest with me.”

Eventually, though, their other friends got tired of waiting too. Peter put it bluntly, “Steve, why don’t you just _date_ her already? You’re together, like, all the fucking time.”

Steve laughed, “Maybe because I’m finally enjoying being single?”

“Okay, but what about when she’s finally _not_ single. How are you going to feel then?”

“I’ll feel like she took my advice in not waiting for me. Rebecca’s great! She can do loads better than me.”

Peter shook his head while he paced the living room. “I don’t get it, man. You’ve got this big ass apartment all to yourself, and you’re not trying to put someone else in it with you.”

“I did have someone else with me,” Steve declared quietly.

“Then use your dick like a reset button and fuck somebody already! Get this show on the road!”

“Do you have money on us or something?” Steve grimaced.

Peter stopped pacing. “Maybe twenty bucks or so. Look, you can’t make me lose to Dylan.”

Steve’s eyes rolled so hard his head lolled against the back of the couch. “Keep your finances off of my dick, all right?”

“This goes well beyond the penis, my friend. You look fuckin’ _sad_. All the time. But not as much when you’re with Rebecca. What’s the problem? Does it not occur to you that she can help get your mind off the past?”

“She’s not a rebound girl.” Steve said while rotated his cup in his hands. “Rebecca’s long haul material.”

Peter gestured dramatically. “Then _what’s the problem?_ Great company and sex for the foreseeable future? You said it yourself! Rebecca’s great! Why don’t you do something?”

“Because I’d like to go a day without thinking about my ex!” Steve erupted. “Until that becomes a habit, Rebecca _should_ do way better than me.”

Peter shook his head while he judgmentally peered around the apartment. “Then we gotta rearrange this place. You’ll never make new vibes with what’s lingering here.”

Steve could agree with that much, at least. They moved the bed first, which quickly disintegrated into taking the bedframe apart, and putting the box spring and mattress directly on the floor perpendicular to the window.

“Perfect! I can use these in my final project,” Peter said while stacking the frame pieces for removal.

“Did you just want my shit?” Steve accused, to a response of laughter.

“I’ll make you a fresh headboard, don’t you worry.”

Peter did that and more. He got Rebecca’s friends to embroider the upholstery of Steve’s couch, which likewise changed walls. The wooden coffee table got replaced with a patina-green garden table someone had looted from an undisclosed location. And the moment his friends discovered that it was in fact a condo instead of an apartment, everything was out of Steve’s hands. Carpet got replaced with repurposed flooring, courtesy of Dylan’s dad. Steve retiled the whole kitchen floor as well as the back splash. The counter separating it from the living room went to a dumpster in favor of a black, steel island on wheels, topped with thrifted, wooden cutting boards. They painted the inside of the door a sapphire teal with curvaceous colors so it matched the tapestry on the opposite wall.

The condo changed from a sterile, perfect home to comfortable, industrial whimsy. Steve didn’t really feel like it was his any more, but then again it never really was. It went from being a gift from his mother to a place to find Billy, and then it was just a way to store his stuff and himself.

“Now we ought to stage it for pictures,” Dylan declared while tying his dreadlocks behind his head. “We did this in less than a month—I want it in my portfolio.”

“I’m not arguing,” Steve laughed. “Just give me money for pizza and I’ll get out of the way.”

Instead, the photography shoot became a pizza and wine party. The walls still reeked of fresh paint, so the balcony door stayed open for people to come and go. Chicago hummed and honked pleasantly below, and when everyone had left apart from Rebecca, Steve finally kissed her.

They sat on the couch watching a movie, but after Rebecca made a comment and Steve joked a reply, it turned into a string of jokes fueled by wine until their legs tangled together and Steve held her chin. One minute they were talking, the next she silently waited for him to close the distance, carefully nodding that it was okay.

The sound of their first kiss melted into the next. Steve’s felt tingles in his stomach like thrilled little raindrops until he remembered that kissing could feel like a vacuum sucking time out of existence. He broke their kiss with a slight shudder; his head bowing over a chest feeling like it might cave in.

“Not yet?” Rebecca whispered.

“Not yet,” he apologized. It was more than he deserved, Rebecca rubbing his chest while she put her head on his shoulder. He rested his cheek on her hair until she roused him awake to go to bed.

“You can stay,” he uttered from his pillow. Steve’s last conscious moments were spent listening to Rebecca slide under the covers with him. Distantly, he felt her hand find his chest again, and his own overlapping it.

Steve woke up with his face pressed into the pillow in Rebecca’s direction. Her eyes rested on the ceiling, the movement of her lashes centering him in the here and now. “You stayed.”

Her head tilted toward him. She smiled, and it was a nice thing to wake up to. “I thought you wanted me to stay.”

He tucked his arm under himself so he could properly roll onto his side. “I did, but I still haven’t figured out why you put up with me.”

“I like you. You’re worth putting up with.”

He stared at her face, and found only sleepy sincerity. “Shit,” he exhaled, “you’re way too good for me.”

She giggled, “You’re right.”

“I’m still pretty, though, right?”

He liked her belly laugh. “The prettiest.”

“Good, good, good…” He began to fade back into slumber, but her voice gently tugged him back.

“Steve?”

“Hm?”

“Sorry to hit you with this first thing, but can I ask you something?”

“I haven’t said no yet,” he moaned groggily.

He heard Rebecca roll over to face him. “You still love him, but are you still in love with him?”

Steve could only sigh and say, “I don’t know. I’m not sure I’ll know until I leave Chicago.”

“You love him enough to leave the whole city?”

He blinked at the sheet beneath them and her hand on top of it. “It wasn’t my plan to stay here. Then again, my only plan was to get out of my small town. That on its own seemed impossible.”

“But you did it. You must’ve daydreamed more plans along the way?”

He hitched a shoulder in a shrug. “Sure. I’ve thought about New York City. And California.”

“Ah, I love California.”

“Yeah?” he peeked up at her with a goofy smile. “Is it worth the hype?”

“Depends on where you go, like anywhere else. The people are different. They’re spoiled by the sun and beaches. It makes them kind of seem like they’re always vacation ready; Tuesday is just another Friday.”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Steve teased. “I met some Californians once, and they were real grouchy.”

“Well, maybe you’ll be a Californian, and you can be one of the not-grouchy ones.”

Then Steve had an idea. “Would you wanna go?”

Her brows lifted, eyes much more awake. “Yeah? Yeah!”

“We’ll go and spend way too much money at Disney Land,” he smiled.

“Deal. When do you want to go?”

They went that weekend. The moment classes ended Thursday, they packed and skipped Friday to fly in. Even better, Dylan and Peter tagged along. Dylan took incredible pictures in the park and on the beach. Peter got them kicked off the beach. And Steve taught Rebecca how to dance.

Dylan sassed, “Rebecca, I can’t believe you can’t dance. Both our moms are Puerto Rican.”

“My grandmother’s Puerto Rican,” she corrected. “Mom didn’t teach me anyth—fuck!” she stumbled.

“It’s easier when you’re drunk,” Steve laughed, absolutely gleeful at finding something he was better at than her.

Dylan agreed, “Everything’s better when you’re drunk, baby. Dancing, especially. Loosens the hips. ”

“Oh yeah?” Steve taunted underneath the hanging lights outside of their hotel. Music from various restaurants played around them. “How come I never see you dancing then?”

“My glass heart would break to show up your cute little Caucasian ass,” he threw back, making Peter spew soda.

Steve held one of his hips as the other pointed to the ground. “Rebecca, find a broom. Get over here.”

Dylan placed a melodramatic hand on his sternum. “You wanna dance with me?”

He merengued all the way over, and before Steve knew it, his years of letting his mother lead came to his rescue. Dylan guffawed, “My dad’s Nigerian and my mama taught me how to dance in the _latino_ neighborhoods of New York City. You’ll never keep up.”

“Okay, okay, put your dancing shoes where your mouth is, then, and teach me,” he challenged.

“That’s gross,” Rebecca exclaimed on her way inside to get a fresh drink.

The moment she was inside, Dylan cornered, “Why are you dancing with me instead of your girl?”

“Wha—we just did! We literally just did.”

Dylan gave him an exhausted sigh and shook his head all the way back to his seat. Steve adjusted the Mickey Mouse ears on his head and defended, “We’re going slow.”

“This?” Dylan pointed to the general situation. “You call this slow?”

Steve could only admit, “My high school self would agree with you, but I like slow. Slow is working for us.”

Definitely working. They made out before falling asleep that night. After their last day at the beach, he brushed his teeth while she showered, only to get her bikini landing on his head. “Don’t make me come in there.”

“I fucking dare you,” her face grinned around the shower curtain, and laughed when he yanked it wide to step inside. As easily as he did it, showering together struck a sore spot. The bathroom had become a uniquely intimate space for him with how many times he and Billy had taken care of each other in them.

But it was also easy. Rebecca’s soft breasts against his chest stirred those ticklish feelings in his stomach, and she didn’t push when his penis lifted a little against her leg. It was playful and comfortable, sexy and easy. Steve liked it slow.

It was a while yet before he fingered her in his own bed, but she came with his mouth on her clit and it felt like a victory. She even kissed him afterwards, tongue passing through his lips like he was dessert.

“Are you sure I can’t do anything for you?” she asked, a hand on his thigh.

“Mmhm,” he nodded against her lips. “I’m good. For now.”

“For now?” she laughed and shoved his head when he licked his fingers.

“Are you good for now?”

“No. As a matter of fact, I’m not.”

Steve happily obliged all over again.

Yeah, slow worked real well. Rebecca still called before coming over, and didn’t insist on getting a key. She kicked him out of bed to make breakfast, which seemed fair when she came with a whole damn picnic basket full of sandwiches, weed, and wine for midweek dinners. All of their friends considered them together, and Steve did too, but he liked not outright slapping a label on it.

If they went a week without talking, no big deal. It likely culminated in her asking to come over and napping on his chest after another big project. Sometimes she cried over it. Steve didn’t get it, because he’d never had an art teacher beyond the required Drawing 101, and Children’s Art Psychology, but he listened until she finished.

Art was harder than he’d ever expected, she and their other friends verified as much. Many weekends were spent in the studios that were open 24/7. Peter would supply the edibles, Steve the whiskey or beer, and it would be the strangest peace mixed with rowdiness he’d ever experienced. Art students were all or nothing; fully focused or _“Dylan, I swear to fucking Christ, if you don’t light up with me, I’ll make Dr. Paum’s whole damn office my final project.”_

Steve often incited the mischief. He changed the music from classical or jazz into rock and pop. He bought cheap paint, balloons, and nails since the art building was a perpetual installation site. Anybody could just nail a balloon to a wall and call it art. And if he laid down a canvas sheet to catch what dripped out of balloons used for dart practice, that was totally well and good. The studios had concrete floors, after all. They were built for this. Even better to use watered down paint in a pump-action water gun.

“Steve, if you aim that in my direction, I will undo everything I contributed to your condo,” Dylan warned when Steve first presented the toy.

“Is that edible paint?” Peter asked from his easel and stool.

Steve and Rebecca gave him concerned looks. “No. What? It’s acrylic, come on.”

“Oh. I was gonna tell you to aim for my mouth. Think practically next time.”

Steve set the gun down to retrieve darts from the sheets of plywood standing along the wall. “Where would I get edible p—ah!”

Light blue splattered over his t-shirt, splashing onto his face. Steve stood frozen, not lifting his eyes until he was sure a second stream wasn’t on the way. Rebecca stared with wide eyes over the gun and a stupid grin.

“So you enjoy the route of war?” he declared huskily, scrubbing a hand over his hair. Paint held it down like gel as Dylan and Peter rushed to cover works in progress before the room exploded in a paint fight. However, when the creaky doors of the building entrance opened, and ominous footsteps of a security guard began to tread their way, Rebecca quickly closed the studio door and they set to cleaning up as boringly perfect student-ish as they could. The guard peeked through the tall rectangular window, and moved on. Only a regular could discern the difference between their mischief and the mess the room was normally in anyway.

Dylan started the laughter which traveled around the room. “We gotta get something to eat before Peter licks himself clean.”

Steve squeezed out dishrags while Rebecca swiped a finger through half-dried pink paint on his cheek. “You’re a mess.”

“ _You’re a mess_ ,” he whined back at her. He shrugged into his autumn orange, corduroy jacket. “I’m a mess? This is your fault!”

He exited the studio last, pushing Rebecca out by the waist and turning the lights off. “So we’re splitting a mega-order of fries, right?”

Peter held his hands up to the night sky. “Bless our local hookah bar and restaurant.”

Dylan side-eyed him. “What are you, an advertisement?”

“Do you think they’ve got lemonade back?” Steve picked up. “Is that seasonal again yet?”

“Aw, Tooty Fruity wants a lemonade?” Dylan gave his shoulder a shove.

“Yes! Why’re you making fun of me? You’re insane! What’s wrong with lemonade?”

Dylan just as easily yanked him back with an arm around his neck. “You’re so pure.”

Steve grasped Dylan’s forearm to readjust it, but Dylan removed it entirely. “Sorry, man. I forgot you had neck problems.”

“No worries. It just hurts at certain angles.”

Dylan slapped his back instead. “I’ll get you a damn lemonade.”

Steve grinned like a kid in summer, much to Rebecca’s amusement. They had to sit on the black steel chairs outside the bar until their clothes dried, though. The owner found the whole situation highly amusing, and brought out a pitcher of lemonade and the platter of fries.

“You guys and gal getting a pipe tonight?” he asked when he returned to check on them.

Rebecca chimed, “Do you have more of the cotton candy flavor?”

“Sorry, love. Doesn’t get here ‘til Monday.”

“Better question,” Dylan intercepted, “have you cleaned the mouth pieces yet? I’m not trying to taste all of Chicago, sir.”

“I clean them every morning!” the owner fumed. “You’re not getting a discount from those accusations!”

Steve tried to contain his laughter as he slipped out of his chair and went inside with the empty pitcher. Setting it on the bar, he prompted the bartender. “I’m going to the bathroom, but can you make this a little more festive?”

“Sure thing,” she smiled, reaching back for a bottle of tequila. When he returned, she nodded in the direction of outside. “Looks like your friend’s putting my boss through the wringer again.”

Steve didn’t need to look through the wall of windows to know what was happening, but he laughed and turned—

Billy is standing next to him, two stools down. Steve hadn’t so much as looked at pictures of him, but those striking features slam into him with time-stopping familiarity. The back of his mullet is gone, but he still has the fluffy, honeyed top. Still has those primped curls hanging over his face. The golden hoops in his ears are thinner, but they shine like his hair, and are now accompanied by small, gold studs.

Billy isn’t hiding. He stands with an elbow on the bar, partially turned toward him, waiting.

“Surprise,” he croons.

Steve’s laugh had frozen on his face, but as he stood staring at the man who had loved him and left him, Steve realized that the frozen surface of his emotional lake was _relief_. Sure, waters still moved underneath, but his bitterness and desperation had surprisingly…left. Billy was okay.

The smile melted into blunt awe, and then lifted into something soft as Steve nodded. “What?” Billy says.

The lemonade slid over the bar between them as Steve shook his head and met his gaze again. It almost burned the second time. _Billy’s okay._

He inhaled, and it didn’t ache. “You look good,” he replied quietly. “That’s all.”

He swallowed and lifted the glass pitcher. Like a light switch, all of his senses jumped into operation. He heard the chatter of the bar, the scrape of shoes and chinking dishes, the bubbling of pipes. He passed the owner on his way outside. “Tell Dylan his student discount isn’t me being nice and it _will_ run out once he graduates.”

Steve could only let a laugh burst out of him and sit down. The lemonade tasted delicious, and his friends were thrilled. Rebecca rubbed his thigh, “Are you okay?”

He nodded, expecting his hair to bob in front of his face but remembered it was halfway covered in paint. “Mmhm.”

She waited for him to change his mind, but he overlapped her hand with his palm. “I’m okay.”

The bar provided various tabletop games and puzzles, so Peter went inside for a deck of cards. He and Steve lost in poker, so they had to pay for the food and second round of drinks. Steve followed him inside to pay the tab, and congratulated himself on not feeling the need to scour the place for Billy. He wasn’t at the bar, and Steve left it at that—

“Closing time,” Dylan surprised them both with arms around their shoulders. “We have a heading?”

Steve signed his money away as he declared, “My place is off limits. I’m not cleaning up after you guys this weekend.”

“Stingy,” Peter retorted, but smiled, “The coffee shop’s open late. It’s open mic night, too!”

Dylan and Steve exchanged intrigued looks. “I’m in,” the latter grinned before he found Rebecca waving at him on her way to the bathroom. While they waited for her, Peter tried and failed to pick up the bartender for the thousandth time. At this point, it might as well have been a game between them, but Steve had once asked if Peter was serious about her.

Dylan merely shrugged with a hopeless hand in the air. “Personally, I think she’s a lesbian, but doesn’t want to let him down too harshly.”

For now, Steve patted him on the shoulder when Rebecca rejoined them. “You can only strike out once tonight, big guy. Come on.”

Steve held the door for them all to file out—which allowed him the time to spot a blue car parked a little ways down the street. The end of a cigarette glowed like a star against Billy’s silhouette sitting on the hood.

“Uh…actually, you guys go on ahead. Bathroom’s a good idea.”

“Huh? You good?” Dylan barked.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll catch up,” Steve said, hand on the door as if to go back inside. When his friends turned down a new street, he crossed the asphalt with his hands in his pockets. Billy didn’t move; just sat there with his legs stretched out, the hand holding the cigarette on his knee. Steve came to a stop a car’s length away. “Hey.”

For a long moment, Billy looked like he wasn’t going to answer. Then he lifted the cigarette slowly to his lips. “Hey.”

Steve’s eyes wandered between him and the empty street. “You…looked like you wanted to say something to me.”

He laid that down like a question, an explanation, an offering. Billy just kept smoking, his eyes never straying from him. Eventually Steve could only blink, hard, and turn around to go catch up with his friends—

“What the hell are you covered in?”

Steve paused and lifted a hand to his hair. It crunched as he looked down at his streaked and splattered jeans. “Uh…paint. Art department water gun fight.”

Smoke lifted from his lips in thin tendrils before the rest billowed out. “That’s the dopiest shit I’ve ever heard.” He spoke slowly. Quietly. Same old Billy.

Steve huffed a laugh down the street. “It’s been a long time since I was considered cool. You smoking again?”

Billy’s eyes dragged over Steve. All over Steve. He took another drag and flicked the unfinished thing out of his hand. “Sometimes.”

Steve followed where it landed. After a moment’s consideration, he picked it up. He could feel Billy watching him as he went to snuff it against one of the bar’s ashtrays. With a glance behind him, he saw that Billy hadn’t moved. The steps taken to retrieve the cigarette had brought him closer to Billy, but now the street once more hung between them. The whole city stood around them, holding its breath. Steve put his hand back in his pocket, doing his gentle nod again. His head felt heavy and light at the same time. “Have a good night.”

The Camaro creaked when Billy’s weight shifted. “What’s open mic night?”

Steve paused on the sidewalk, rocking on his feet. “You heard that?”

Billy looked away while he twirled a finger around his ear. _Vampire hearing_.

Steve exhaled, “Right. It’s when anyone can get on stage and…you know, sing. Play music. Recite poetry, whatever they want. It’s an open mic.”

“And it’s actually good?”

“As good as free can get.” Steve admitted a small smile. “It’s usually the right thing to buy a coffee, though.”

“At one a.m.”

“We sleep during the week.”

“You look like a pumpkin.”

“Billy,” he clipped. Steve has no idea where this is going, but it’s warmer tonight, so he puts forward, “Do you want to go for a walk?”

Billy processed that, and Steve decided he wasn’t going to analyze the laugh, or the smile that came afterward. “Yeah. I’ll walk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a recap of the main story coming in part 4, but for now it's just useful to know that Steve broke his neck saving Billy. Billy can also walk in sunlight and eat food. Vampires are sun dumplings here <3 more details on that later, both here and in main story.


	2. Summer

Steve and Billy. Walking.

Steve took the pavement while Billy lingered on the street. At this time of night, barely any cars were out, but Steve could feel every step Billy took and the sway of his weight. He didn’t like that. This hypersensitivity teasing to flare back up. Steve flapped his jacket pockets to let what chill the night had soak into his torso, distracting and cleansing. When it occurred to Steve that this was just like meeting someone for the second time, he felt better. He and Billy were certainly not strangers, but they weren’t the same people anymore. A lot can happen in a year. A person’s whole chemistry can change.

So they walked, neither of them saying anything. It was like they both needed to just start with the sounds of footsteps, and glimpses of color in their periphery. Well, Steve needed it. Billy faced subtlety with a sledgehammer.

“Are you ignoring me now?”

“Hm?” Steve hummed, not quite looking at him, but pivoting his body in acknowledgment.

“You ask me to walk and then nothin’.”

“I offered to go for a walk. I didn’t obligate anybody to say anything.”

“Jesus,” he cursed, but Steve can hear the mirth in it. He allows himself a smirk and lifts his face toward the sky. The haze of streetlights obscuring the night isn’t as bad at one a.m. Some stars were awake up there.

“Art department. Explain that.”

Steve gave him the short version: “My teachers volunteered me to help out, I made some friends, and here we are. They’ve all got these big portfolio projects, though. It’s my job to keep them from losing their minds.”

“Because you’re so good at keeping your own head screwed on.”

“Yeah, well, you learn some things along the way,” he said measuredly.

Silence fell over them. That was fine by Steve. It was as far as he wanted to go in relation to the past year; too close to touching the festering mania that gripped him for the better part of a year and more.

Billy let the silence happen. Then, “Where are we going?”

“ _I’m_ going to an open mic night,” Steve sassed, “but I can do a drink on the way.”

“A drink, then.”

However, when Billy finally saw Steve’s destination, his tone dropped. “This isn’t a bar.”

“They have drinks.”

“ _Drinks_ , he says,” Billy scoffed. “There’s only one kind of drink to have past midnight.”

“I know the owner,” he chimed, and walked right into the late night hotdog shop. It’s the kind of place with a garage door separating it from the street, but the old men laughing behind the diner-style bar recognize him.

“Hey-hey! Steve, what are you doing—wow, must’ve been some fight. What’s the other guy look like?”

He laughed with them and found a few bills in his wallet. “Pink and a little bit of orange.”

They bellowed laughter before he corralled, “Can I get two Sprites, Ray?”

“Sure thing, kid.”

Steve puts an elbow on the counter, slouching a little as he gazes outside. Billy’s stayed on the pavement, one hand in his pocket while his mouth purses disapprovingly. When his eyes find Steve, the latter turns away to see the green, glass bottles being set on the counter. Ray took the bottle caps and passed Steve his change, only instead of coins, it’s an airplane bottle of vodka. Steve pocketed it for later.

“Thanks, gentlemen. Don’t stay up too late, or you won’t be pretty for tomorrow.”

A barrage of back talk and bickering sound off behind him, inducing Steve to duck his head and laugh on his way out. Billy accepted his beverage with graceful reluctance. “A glass Sprite.”

“Ray knows what’s good,” Steve returned, sipping his drink. “You don’t see glass pop anymore.”

“ _Pop?_ Oh my god.” Billy lazily strolled behind him on the sidewalk. “I actually forgot you call it that.”

“You’re the outlier here.”

“Yeah, what else is new,” he sighed, taking a drink. Steve looked away from the line of his jaw, the press of his lips on the bottle. He wiggled the vodka miniature between two fingers, waiting for Billy to see it. He smirked when it was snatched from his hand. “You little shit.”

“You’ll have to pour some out to mix it.”

“No problem.” And with that, Billy overturned his beverage onto the street. Capping it with his thumb, he turned the bottle over to mix, and held it away for the carbonation to burp. He handed the rest of the vodka to Steve—

“No thanks. I’ve already got tequila in my system.”

The bottle wavered in the air. “It’s not a drink if I’m drinking alone.”

“My treat. Have it all.” Steve declined, but he heard the cap scratch around the threads before Billy pocketed it.

“Slow down.”

There it is: his impatience to get on with it. To reach the finish line that was his ass in a seat at the coffee shop. Steve’s breath lingered in his throat before he carefully pushed it out, and his stride eased to a stop. On the corner of the street he’d turn on to reach the coffee shop, he leaned back against the concrete business. “I have people waiting on me.”

“Yeah.” Billy drew even with him. “One of them’s a girl.”

Billy’s eyes lifted from the bottle in his hand. Steve glanced in the direction he wanted to go with a shake of his head. “I’m not doing this.”

“Doing what?”

He had to look at him, then. To see the familiar pettiness that made Billy almost funny. Almost cute. While Billy had his attention, he asked, “Is she your girlfriend?”

“We’re together.”

Billy searched his face before outright asking, “What does that mean? You fuck each other?”

Steve had really begun to feel how far past one a.m. it was. He rubbed his eyes while Billy elaborated, “I just find it interesting how you didn’t just answer yes to the question.”

“Yes, she’s my girlfriend,” he all but spat. “What about you? Who are you drinking these days?”

He’d caught Billy with that one. Something vulnerable retreated in his gaze. “Nobody. Nobody for a long time. I’m off blood.”

“Really?” Steve’s defensiveness diffused. He adjusted his stance against the building and ventured, “How’s that going?”

“Shitty.” The curtains closed behind Billy’s eyes and he took a long swig of Sprite. “You’re not going to ask why?”

Steve shrugged. “It’s not my business.” A sharp _Pfft!_ sound made Steve look at Billy’s blunt glare. “What? I’m supposed to feel sorry for you when you put all the effort into nearly burning down the condo to learn how to cook? Poor vamp has to make his waffles and eat ‘em too.”

A smile broke across Billy’s face. “Yeah, and they’d be the best waffles of your life.”

“Cocky son of a bitch,” Steve threw back, but the tension had passed.

After a moment of just listening to the night and sipping their drinks, Billy asked, “Are you really going to this open mic thing?”

“Well, yeah,” he laughed breathily, struggling to swallow in time to speak. “I’ve gotta reassure my friends that I didn’t fall in a sewer somewhere, and then I’ll get a coffee to carry my ass home. Sounds like a solid night to me.”

“I guess so.” Steve’s attention dropped to Billy’s hand taking his glass and replacing it with his spiked one. “For some people.”

He watched the tip of Billy’s tongue make contact with the bottle before he drank. Then Steve’s eyes flicked to Billy’s trained on him. He sighed, and looked away. “It _is_ a public place,” he voiced before he knew what he was saying. “It’s not like you’ll burn on the threshold.”

“I don’t do that anyways,” he grimaced slightly. “Oh, is that supposed to be a joke? A vampire joke?”

“Your sense of humor was always at my expense,” Steve teased. “How’s it feel?”

“I can take a joke if it’s actually funny. That was sad.”

“I hang around artists nowadays,” Steve finished, standing up from the building. “They like my sad humor. I’m not gonna keep them waiting.”

He clinked his bottle against Billy’s, “Thanks for this,” and began walking away. His steps were slow at first, almost lazy since he expected Billy to say something else, something to draw out his time a little more…

_You’re done waiting, Steve_ , he told himself, and strengthened his strides. He didn’t drink from the bottle; just held it close as he bumped into Peter in the coffee shop doorway.

“There you are! God, man, it’s Chicago. Don’t disappear like that.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” he laughed with a hand on Peter’s arm. “I ran into somebody from school. Wow, it’s crowded.”

“Yeah, we’ve been holding you a seat, but people are eyeballing it like vultures.”

“Okay, okay, yeah.” Steve shrugged through the crowd to where Dylan and Rebecca sat. He dropped into the seat between them and held the bottle between his thighs. He flexed his frozen hand before wagging the condensation off.

Rebecca leaned in to ask, “You okay?”

A surge of feelings inside Steve spoke without him. “I miss summer.”

Her face scrunched with confusion and amusement, but stayed quiet for the performance.

Steve took the bottle all the way back to his fridge afterward, fully expecting it to disintegrate into one of his panic dreams. The dreams that replaced the Upside-Down. Where he imagined Billy doing Billy things like he’d never left. He’d been without those for a while now, but he didn’t have much control over his dreams. That was always Billy’s area.

And when he woke up the next morning, his hand lingered on the fridge handle. Like pulling off a band-aid, he opened it. Green bottle. Steve wasn’t sure what to feel about that, so he chose to feel nothing at all. He sighed, and shut the door. He’d go get a bagel or something.

However, once he stepped onto the streets running through campus, his friends descended upon him with fliers and signs they were putting up. “Steve! Excellent! We can use your muscle—”

“Nope, I don’t have any of that,” he rotated on a dime.

“Now now,” Peter entrapped him with a solid arm around his back. “You’re not gonna want to miss this, and helping us set up will get you free admission. The swankiest of the swank artists has agreed to do a small exhibition in our gallery.”

“Cool. The school’s flexing at the rest of the city,” Steve retorted, unwillingly accepting the stack of A-fold signs Dylan handed him. “You guys do realize I have my own work and projects, right?”

Dylan snorted, “No, not with the way you’re always with us. Follow me. Those signs need to be visible on busy streets; I’ve got sandbags to hold them down.”

“Windy city,” Steve sighed, obediently following.

“Is that a bagel?” Peter locked onto the white paper bag sticking out of his backpack.

“Touch it and I’m burying you in the Park District.”

Peter retracted his hand. “Damn. Wrong side of the bed, much?”

Dylan defended, “Shame on you for trying to steal a man’s breakfast.”

“It’s not even nine o’clock,” Steve whined. “I thought I was done with this early bullshit after sophomore seminar.”

“You had to do that seminar as a transfer student?” Dylan piqued as he arranged a sandbag over one of the signs Steve placed down.

“Why are you guys even awake right now?” Steve answered instead.

“Never slept!” Peter chimed. He stuck fliers under the windshield wipers of parked cars. “We got the email about the show at three a.m. and got to work on all the signage.”

“Exemplary students,” Steve groaned, dropping another sign for Dylan to situate.

“Be gentle with those, we’re renting them,” the latter scolded. Brisk wind threw Steve’s hair in disarray until Peter’s hands were free and he took over the A-folds while Steve finally devoured his bagel.

Strawberry cream cheese gushed over the edges of the blueberry bagel as he asked, “When is this show, anyways?”

“Dude, it’s in three days!”

He paused to wipe pink from his lips. “That’s really short notice, isn’t it? I mean, you guys throw together exhibitions in, like, ten hours, but for a pro, that’s gotta be unusual?”

Peter answered, “I told you—swanky of the swank. They probably saw a free day in their schedule and figured they had the time to humor some students.”

“Are you going to tell me who this big shot is?”

“You’ve never heard of them.”

Steve’s head tilted. “You’re right.”

Rebecca sure had, though. When she and Steve rendezvoused for a late lunch, he got the full biography. “Sue Williams! I’ve shown you her work before!”

“You’ve shown me a _lot_ of artists’ work—”

He startled at the tome of a textbook landing on the table outside their favorite Chinese restaurant. It was all he could do, keeping various side dishes and sauce packets on the surface during her frenzy to educate him. “Here! This one!”

He frowned at the grey scale photographs. “Oh…yeah. Mrs. Pollock.”

“She’s not Mrs. Pollock! There’s a whole figurative and literal generation gap between them. Her pieces are far more colorful and spacious in comparison.”

“If you say so. The art books really need to invest in colored printing. All I get from this is that she throws paint around like he does.”

Rebecca leaned forward. “Since it’s happening in the gallery we use, we get to use it as an extension of our own work.”

Steve stopped chewing. He discretely closed his orange chicken and fried rice containers. “That sounds like an extra project you have less than three days to complete.”

“Sure, but it’ll be great! This is exciting—Where are you going?”

“I’m just staying the hell out of your way,” he said, food boxes in hand while he began to jog away.

“Steve? Steve!” The book clapped shut and she raced after him. “I’ll need you to bring your power drill to the studio tonight!”

“Bring your own! You have your own tools!” he picked up his pace.

“Steve!”

“Nope!”

“Dylan will need help carrying his softbox lights!”

“Nope!”

“Steve!” she barked as she jumped onto his back.

“Gah-Ow, Reebok!” he cursed, catching her legs while she guffawed. Pedestrians moved out of their way with voiced and hushed complaints, but Rebecca’s feet swung contently.

“This is nice! This’ll do.”

“Shut up. Oh my god, you’re heavy.”

“Be nice to me! I’m about to have a show with Sue Williams!” she decreed for the whole city. Steve couldn’t help but laugh and spin around with her on his back before carrying her all the way back to campus.

“You could’ve let me down four blocks ago,” she said by way of thanking him in front of the art building.

“No see, now I have the back pain to get me out of your chores.”

“You’re such a butthead!”

“Takes one to know one!” He wiggled sassily before smiling and pinching her waist. “Don’t call me to drive you to the E.R. this time.”

“No promises,” she laughed. Rebecca pulled him into a hug before complaining, “Are you really not helping out tonight?”

“Oh my god.” His eyes rolled so hard he faced the sky. “I _do_ have my own classes!”

“Okay, jeez. You don’t have to cry to god about it.”

He showed up at the studio anyways. With everyone on a time crunch, he had the right environment to complete some of his own tasks too. The following day involved the exodus of half-completed projects to the gallery.

“Go big or go home, am I right?” Peter grinned while he, Dylan, Steve, and other art students suffered under the weight of his painting.

“Double Rye,” Steve grit.

“What?” Dylan heaved once they set it down on the sidewalk in front of said gallery to catch their breath.

“Peter’s buying us a bottle of Double Rye for this.”

“Wait—Wait a minute, guys. That whiskey’s expensive—”

Dylan curtailed, “For every art piece that requires more than two people to lift, we get a bottle of alcohol. Fair wages.”

“I didn’t realize it would take something just shy of a mural for you to unionize, fuck,” Peter quipped. He gripped his corner of the painting once more. “Just imagine how much this would weigh if it was finished. Three, two, hup!”

“We’re burning these after the show,” Dylan panted, and they hauled it into the gallery. Steve eventually left them to finish their pieces and arrange the rest of the rooms. As much as he liked being a part of the whole shindig, he wanted to sleep before the big night, and he actually liked not seeing the final result until the gallery opened.

After stuffing his face with barbecue chips and brushing his teeth, Steve moved a lint roller over himself. Since it seemed to be a bigger night for his friends, he didn’t want to stand out in a bad way for them. So he cinched his black leather belt through his slightly itchy slacks, but compensated with one of his favorite shirts. It was midnight blue with the slightest rusty speckles across it. More of a texture pattern than outright polka dots, and Rebecca called the arms “quarter sleeves.” She also called it his “monk shirt,” because it didn’t have a collar; just a button closure that he liked to keep undone so it folded outward on its own.

Shrugging into his blazer, he checked his hair one last time, and realized he hadn’t shaved. He looked at the watch face he kept on the sink and decided a little stubble would be fine.

He dodged puddles as he jogged over the street in front of the gallery, all lit up with a line of people outside it. Dylan caught him from a side door so he didn’t have to be that dick who walked right through the queue. The door fed into a stairwell, and at the top was a wide-open room with white walls, light oak floors, and paintings Steve had only seen in black and white.

“Woah,” he chuckled, blinking against the bright room. Rectangular, green velvet benches divided the center to control foot traffic. “So this is Sue Williams’ stuff? I like it. It’s got a vibe.”

Dylan laughed at him while Rebecca approached for a hug. Steve congratulated them with, “Have you popped the champagne yet? Or do you have to make a whole toast for that?”

She made an exasperated, albeit mirthful sound. “The food’s downstairs, you.”

Peter intercepted, “Or you can stick this in your pocket.”

Steve was momentarily caught by the man’s calico shirt, but both he and Dylan reacted to the bottle of liquor in his hand. “You got it!”

“I was actually kidding,” Dylan said in awe, taking the bottle from Steve to observe the label, “but this’ll do nicely.”

“Man of my word,” Peter splayed a hand on his chest. “What d’you say? We get some of the cups from downstairs and pop this baby open?”

Rebecca sighed and turned toward the stairs, “I’ll be the enabler.”

“You’re an angel, Reebok,” Steve grinned, earning a shove against his head. “Peter, you look like a pirate in that shirt.”

“Yeah?” Peter took a step back to pose, utterly complimented. “I almost wore my gold earrings tonight, too. But I didn’t want to distract from the art, you know.”

Dylan’s head shook at Steve. “Why d'you gotta gas him up like that?”

Steve only giggled and rubbed the silk ribbon stuck under the bottle’s wax seal. “I don’t suppose there are scissors around?”

“It’s a decoration, not virginity, and I was impatient to get through both of them. Just open it.”

“Hey, hey, have some class. Sue Williams is here, and I know all of you guys’ art supplies have been shoved in a closet somewhere.”

Peter intercepted, “Actually it’s just the art, not the artist.”

Steve gaped at him. “Are you serious? She didn’t come to her own show?”

He pushed his bottom lip up with a shrug. “She lives in California…or is it England?”

Steve nudged Dylan. “The school’s flexing for the town.”

“This flex is lifting us up to job opportunities,” the latter finished. “Are you opening that bottle or what?”

“Alright. Where’s the closet? Rebecca keeps box cutter blades in her supply kit.”

Peter handed him a key ring and directed, “Over there is a stealthy hallway to a staff bathroom. The door adjacent has a giggly handle.”

“Got it.” He swirled the key around his finger, and off he went. Giggly was an understatement. The lever handle seemed ready to fall right out of the door, but Steve turned the key and recognized Rebecca’s colorful bags and toolbox shoved in the back. Cursing under his breath, Steve gingerly stepped into the cramped closet, doing his best to not touch anything lest he get clay dust or dried pigment on his dark clothes.

“Okay,” he muttered as he sliced through the fancy ribbon. He twisted the cap off just to be sure he wouldn’t need anything else to open it, and congratulated himself on not causing a loud mess getting out of the closet. Double checking himself for marks and scuffs, he raked a hand through his hair as he turned back into the room…

Billy took lazy steps between the velvet benches. His head turned the same moment Steve felt the room vignette around him. He didn’t smile exactly…but his features softened when his eyes found Steve.

Billy always stood out, but in the brightly lit gallery, he glowed. Summer skin, honey blond hair, and a white collared shirt loosely buttoned halfway up—

Steve reminded himself to breathe. Billy pivoted to face him as he approached, feeling stupid with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a lifetime’s worth of things to say in the other.

“You look good.”

Steve’s gaze perked up, landing on his hair. “I can see your ears.”

For the briefest second, Billy looked stuck between affront and confusion. He let his body sway to the side with his laughter. “Yeah, I’ve got two a’those. Your beard is still patchy.”

“Are you still bald of chest hair?”

“Why don’t you look for yourself?”

“I’m a gentleman. I don’t look at cleavage.”

“Bullshit.” Billy lifted a toothy smirk. The jacket he held switched arms. Not his old, brown leather one, Steve noted. That one had been a little too big, patchy from years of wear that Billy did not yet have, and probably bought from a thrift shop. This one gleamed like butter. Steve realized Billy had probably been wearing it during their walk, but he’d been too preoccupied keeping his head from exploding to notice.

Billy nodded at his hand. “What’s that?”

Steve palmed the bottle with a little heft as if he might’ve forgotten about it. “Celebration. And payment for getting this place ready on such short notice. How are you here?”

Billy’s eyelashes lowered to half-mast as his eyes dragged elsewhere. “Some asshole stuffed a leaflet through one of my cracked windows.”

Steve licked his lips before frowning at his friends across the room. “You should know better than to leave your car open in a town like this.”

“You know what, you got me there,” Billy said, but his attention followed Steve’s gaze across the room. Without turning around, he felt the eyes of said friends on him, and his ears easily latched onto them speaking.

“Oh boy…”

“What?”

“I think…I think we just found Steve’s ex.”

“ _That’s_ his ex?”

“You didn’t see the way Steve looked at him? Like time stopped when that ghost walked in.”

“That’s not a ghost, that’s a mother fucking sun beam. Jesus Christ, I’d fuck him. I didn’t know Steve was mutually inclusive—how’d he land _that_ one?”

“Dude.”

“What? Steve’s cute, but there’s cute, and then there’s fine as hell.”

“Let’s just watch over Rebecca while Steve handles this.”

_Rebecca. So that’s her name._

“Billy.”

He blinked, refocusing on Steve combing anxious fingers through his hairline. He twirled a finger while he did so, discretely gesturing around them.

Everyone in the room had eyes on Billy. He inhaled sharply, shifting his weight before he looked at the floor and internally commanded the room to divert their attention elsewhere. Slowly, they did.

Steve observed Billy pushing two fingers between his dark brows. “I can unlock the staff bathroom if you need a minute.”

Billy almost refused. Then he considered it a good idea to separate himself from the people here. To follow Steve to a concealed place—

“When does this thing end?”

He faced that familiar, almost bug-eyed expression of Steve processing. _Cute_. “The show? Uh—the gallery closes at ten, but things will wind down around...eight-thirty or so.”

“ _So_ I have to deal with you being only polite to me for two hours?”

Steve’s eyes tried to roam his face, but darted down, back up. Down. He blinked hard underneath furrowed brows. “What?”

He felt Billy move. He saw Billy’s shiny Doc Martens step close. Real close. Billy’s breath faintly tickled his ear. “Don’t invite me into a locked room unless you intend to be in there with me.”

Billy saw Steve’s lips relax, but he felt heat bloom throughout his body. Like his words were ink spreading, rippling, tearing through Steve.

“You don’t get to say that to me.”

Billy blinked, taken aback as Steve’s lips pressed together and his jaw steeled. Steve purposely met his gaze, then, and he let Billy see a glimpse of whatever had risen to the surface first: anger, anguish. All the nights he’d lost dreaming wide-awake about Billy.

“I just did.”

“We’re not doing this here,” he bit out. His weight shifted to one leg while the other’s knee began to bounce with apprehension.

“Doing what?”

Steve didn’t stick around for the smirk. He maneuvered around Billy and aimed for the staff stairwell. Peter startled when the bottle pressed against his chest with the keys. “Tell her I’ll call her.”

He and Dylan could only watch mutely as Billy followed Steve out. The staff door creaked and slammed, footsteps descended, and they waited long enough for the exterior to open and shut despite not hearing it. Eventually Peter heaved, “Woah.”

Dylan could only mirror his stunned expression before he put together, “You know, I’m starting to understand why Steve looked brain dead when we first met him— _ooh_ , shit.”

Rebecca frowned at him, cups in hand. “Shit, what? What are you guys talking about? Where’s Steve?”

Peter reached a new octave with, “He said he’d call you!”

She and Dylan stared at him before the former asked, “From where, prison? Why are you guys being weird?”

Dylan took the bottle and began to pour. “There’s been an altercation.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sue Williams is actually a real person if you want to check out her art haha


	3. Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if I've said this yet, but Billy's vampire powers involve him being able to explore the memories of whoever he feeds on~ Useful tidbit haha

Steve could count the number of times he’d missed Hawkins on one hand, but the one thing it had in spades were private places. Turn off a street—miles of farmland. Hell, what few acres of woods stood between neighborhoods got pitch black at night and swallowed sound the way black holes swallow light. But a city was unique: everywhere and nowhere were private. Steve sure as hell wasn’t bringing Billy back to his apartment.

He turned into an alleyway that was wider than most, too visible from the street for criminals to loiter. A Polish restaurant made the place smell like sausage and bread, but the only audience to see Steve lose his fucking mind were the stray cats—

“Steve.”

“ _What?_ ” he erupted, rotating so fast Billy stopped in his tracks. “It’s been a _year_ , Billy! Over a year! What do you have to say?”

“This isn’t the homecoming I wanted.”

Steve’s hair bobbed over his eyes, probably making him look like a goon, but that ship had sailed waving his colors. “ _Oh_. You always planned on coming back? Because you forgot to tell me that, _just like_ you forgot to tell me that something was important enough for you to drop everything and leave!”

“I helped Max’s mom divorce my dad and I found my mom.”

Steve waved his arms up so they slapped the sides of his thighs. “Congratulations. You found the woman who left you just like you left me.”

Billy leaned his hips back while he looked at the ground. “I deserve that.”

Steve’s hands gripped his hips. He missed his jeans. “Yeah, you do. Because in what world did you think you couldn’t tell me that you had to go off and do that stuff?”

“It wasn’t your shit to deal with,” he clipped.

Steve gaped at him. “Billy, I—I was ready to take on anything and everything with you. I thought we already had. But it wasn’t mutual, I guess.”

Billy opened his mouth to speak but Steve wasn’t done. “What? Did I say _I love you_ too much? Was cooking for me really that unbearable? You had two years to say something! _Not_ to leave me a fucking note that made me have panic attacks for eight months!”

The screech of a window opening above their heads craned their attention. “Move it inside, you fuckin’ FAGS!”

Both Steve and Billy exploded with insults. “HEY, eat shit!”

“Keep screaming from that tower, princess!”

“Suck a cock, president fucker!”

Steve exhaled raggedly after that one, rubbing his neck while Billy looked on him with newfound amusement. “Wow. Political. Can I talk now? You done?”

“Not likely,” he fumed, but in the meantime, his restlessness moved to his eyes wandering the alley.

Billy took his time pushing his arms into his jacket. Steve was pacing in place by the time he said, “It wasn’t easy for me to go. If I could do it differently, I would. A million times, I wanted to get in my car and burn rubber driving back here.”

“I have a _phone_. You know its number.” Steve’s glare disintegrated and he shook his head at the asphalt. “I missed so many classes waiting for a phone call.”

“And I wanted to—”

“I don’t think you did. Because the Billy I thought I knew would do what he wanted and the world could burn behind him. The Billy I knew would’ve punched me the second I talked shit about his mom. I don’t know you at all. What the hell did we spend two years doing?”

“A lot,” Billy answered. “You built a whole life here.”

“I thought _we_ did that.”

Billy pushed on, “I knew what I had to do would take a long time. I didn’t expect a year, but a _week_ was a long time for me. Stop laughing.”

“Oh,” Steve chuckled with a gesturing finger, “you call this laughing? Then we’re both hypocrites, because this isn’t funny and everything you’re saying isn’t making sense. A week’s a long time for you? Took you that and then some before you even left that shitty note on the door.”

“I’m starting to miss the days when I did hit you,” Billy growled. “Maybe then you’d let me finish.”

“I don’t miss getting hit,” Steve rebuked. “I sure as hell missed everything else, though.”

“You’re holding two years over my head, but have you actually thought about what that means for me? Two years living and loving—”

“Billy,” Steve tried to stop, but it came out weak. It hurt more than he wanted to bear, hearing Billy say he loved him even a little bit, if ever, at all. He scrubbed his hands over his face and leaned his pelvis against the wall of the alley.

“—Two years of trusting and feeding on one person. How was I supposed to leave? I didn’t want to. Every cell in my body screamed at me not to go.”

“See, I can get the need to help Max and her mom. I can even agree with the need to rush out of here before your dad took things too far, but you still didn’t tell me—and what about your mom? You didn’t think, _Maybe Steve will help me deal with seeing the person who abandoned me. Maybe Steve can pay for food while I pay for gas. Maybe Steve won’t mind being relied on_ —”

“I MESSED UP!”

Steve had slumped all the way to squatting on the ground, and good thing, for now he hugged his knees to stay balanced in the wake of Billy’s tirade.

“ _You_ were the one nailed down here! You finally made it into college. You were the one who worked his ass off to get us here! How was I supposed to cut you off when things were finally going your way? Finally going _our_ way—and it’s _my_ bullshit that shows up. My shit storm that you shouldn’t be putting up with.”

“But that’s what this is supposed to _mean_ ,” Steve gestured between them. “It’s not just yours. You’re not supposed to do this alone. I never thought I was alone during all that community college—”

Billy wrenched him up by his shirt and blazer, crowding him against the wall. “ _You’re not listening to me._ I had you in my veins for two years. Your stupid brain overlapped mine for two years. And then I had to rip you out just to get a mile outside of this city. You wouldn’t be able to pause school, and I wouldn’t be able to deal with leaving you for weeks at a time over and over again. I didn’t _know… Fuck_.”

Billy’s forehead lowered to his shoulder. Steve’s shallow breaths landed against his heart trying to break out of his chest. It didn’t help when Billy’s grip relaxed, when his hands began to move. Steve felt vulnerable beneath his palms, like every breath he took lifted his chest like Braille into Billy’s fingertips. He pulled Steve’s shirt against his face, and Steve knew he was crying.

Steve’s hands wavered at his sides, twitching and restless. Having all of Billy—wide, strong Billy—in his face, blocking out the world and holding onto him like Steve’s shirt had the threads to stitch himself back together…

Billy’s hair brushed his face, and Steve unconsciously bowed his head for it. Billy leaned into him and his arms caught around Billy’s shoulders. One of those naked ears pushed against Steve’s cheek, soft. Billy’s arms moved behind Steve’s waist, drawing him tight against him. Steve’s spine curved, convex to Billy’s concave as they held onto each other.

Billy murmured into Steve’s clothes, “I didn’t know how unbearable it was gonna get. I thought the first week would be the worst of it. I was wrong.”

“No shit, you were wrong,” Steve whispered. He tried to lean a bit in Billy’s hold, but the growing tension in his back didn’t ease—

Billy’s arms moved up, and squeezed, ever so slightly lifting Steve up. An involuntary sound left him before a small pop transformed it into relief. “Your neck needs a realignment,” Billy said quietly, his voice warm.

“I know,” he huffed, not meaning to plant his chin on Billy’s shoulder, but there it went. Steve felt a tickle on his hair, and then Billy’s nose exploring his scalp.

“You smell the same. And different.”

Steve ducked his head, pulling away. Billy’s voice all but vibrated through him. It dripped over him and throughout, waking up every fingerprint, every place Billy had ever touched. “I am different,” he lied, pulling Billy’s arms off of him, but his hands simply moved to the brick behind Steve.

“What d’you think you’re doing?”

“I need time,” Steve breathed, wedging a hand between their bodies.

“Time for what, exactly?”

He found the strength to push Billy off of him. “To decide whether or not I lost my mind at Alex O’Neil’s party.”

“Whose?” Billy chirped, barely budging.

Steve made the mistake of trying to glare at him. Even in the gloom, Billy’s ruddy eyes and damp lashes were too close. Fragile. “The night you first bit me,” he uttered, breathless.

Billy smiled…and it was _Billy_. No arrogant bravado or fake charm. Nothing stoic or concealed. Just soft and warm Billy. Steve’s eyes fell to the skin descending between the lapels of his jacket.

“Why don’t you look at me?” he murmured. “Why’ve you been avoiding my eyes this whole time?”

Steve tried to tilt his head away from Billy leaning so far into his personal space that he could feel strokes of air from his words. Steve could only blink, hard, holding his eyes shut and swallowing the ache in his throat. “Because it hurts to see you.”

He shuddered as a hand carefully touched his face, holding his jaw. Billy’s thumb grazed over Steve’s lips. He tried to turn his head away. “Billy—”

His other hand cradled the side of Steve’s face the same moment Billy’s lips caught his. Softness. Better than crushed velvet. Steve had forgotten how supple Billy’s lips were, how they gave under his mouth, and pushed to claim every shredded piece of his soul he breathed out.

Billy’s soft peck had a brief, exploratory quality to it. The sound of their lips parting hit like a pebble on Steve’s tin heart, ringing through his whole body. He kissed again, with more surety, and then his lips pushed Steve’s open, eliciting a broken moan from him. Cradled as he was between Billy’s hands, Steve had blinders on. The mild smell of his skin and the dark sweetness of his mouth—

Steve lunged forward, his own hand sliding along Billy’s neck to hold under his ear as his tongue found Billy’s. They switched places, Steve’s hands finding Billy’s face to hold him, cherish him, and Billy’s hands slid down his spine to grip his waist. His fingertips pressed low into Steve’s back, where he liked it, causing a stronger moan to fall out of Steve’s mouth into Billy’s.

Billy shuddered, and Steve felt one of his teeth slide next to his tongue. Pulling back enough to see, Steve pushed Billy’s lips aside with the pad of his thumb. Billy let him expose the fang, and groaned huskily when Steve gently massaged the gums, inducing it to slide all the way out. _Fuck_ , Steve thought, cursing himself for forgetting how cute Billy’s fangs are when they’re uneven. The smell and softness of Billy’s clean-shaven skin soaked into his brain, made him come back down to nuzzle his lips against Billy’s cupid’s bow and shiny, bottom lip.

“I used to think this was real,” he breathed. “But now I can’t tell if I’m addicted to you.”

Billy tugged his hand out of the way. “It’s always been real, Harrington.”

Steve shook his head. Billy’s eyes widened, losing him. “I shouldn’t want you this bad. It’s been a year—”

“And why can’t it be both?” He held Steve’s chin, trying to keep him from pulling away. “We fucked and loved and lived for two years addicted to each other. It was good. It was _great_. It wasn’t perfect, but it was _us_. I messed it up. I messed up— _Steve_.”

He managed to pull Billy’s hands off his face, but they only caught on his clothes. “Don’t ignore me and pull away from me.”

“I need time.”

“For _what?_ ” Billy wanted to scream, but didn’t put his voice behind it. It burst out of him like a desperate wind from an empty cave.

Steve scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to make it hurt, to give himself some sort of bucket of cold water over his head. “It’s supposed to be _easy_ here. In our city—it was always easy to find _us_ here. This isn’t easy, and I can barely remember my own name next to you. I need time.”

“To what? Decide that the Rebecca chick is easier and easy is better?”

Steve had taken a step toward the main street, but grit out, “Don’t do that. Don’t harass me with her.”

“That’s unfair,” Billy growled, “because I can smell her on you. I smelled you on her when I walked by her in the gallery. I smelled you from all the way down the fucking street outside that bar, on people I don’t know and have never seen. I had to watch her touch you.”

“That’s LIFE!” Steve erupted, but he could feel his strength waning. “I had to keep living! I had to wash _you_ out of every goddamn thing in the apartment! We tore up the fucking carpet, Billy! Those people helped me find some shred of myself again after you left! You took everything I had!”

“And left everything I was,” he finished.

Steve exhaled raggedly, his lungs feeling like hot air balloons: overused and stretched thin. “I need time to forgive you.”

With that, he dragged the cement bricks of his feet out of the alley. He didn’t want to go back to the condo. A basketball court would be the ideal place, but all the schools in the area kept their kids walled in with chain link fences with good locks. His school’s gymnasium would have people in it.

Steve walked through the city for a long time. Long enough for the streets to clear and his feet to no longer tolerate being in dress shoes, and then he walked all the way back to school.

He scanned his student id into the art building. Nobody would be here except the random batch of underclassmen in the computer lab, typing away at their finals papers. His cluster of darts remained where he’d left them in the studio. Finding the hammer, he pried out the nails of exploded balloons, and turned his brain on autopilot to refill some more. The loud rush of the sink, mixing the paint, and _bam!bam!bam!_ of the nails seemed to pound some of his stamina back together. Or at least, it served to give him a fresh wall of plywood boards hanging with bulbous, dripping wet balloons.

The first dart struck pink. Paint coated more of the under hanging balloons than wood, dripping like water over breasts up close. From far away, the gush of pink stood out like an injury.

The second hit wood, somehow, but Steve kept throwing. He collected the darts, and threw again. Red, white, pink, neon green, cerulean, ochre. He didn’t even bother removing his blazer; just rolled up the sleeves and refilled balloons with different colors.

 _Shak!_ Purple.

 _Shak!_ Burgundy.

 _Shak!_ White.

 _Shak!_ Rusty orange.

 _Thunk_. Wood. “What’ll you call it?”

Steve startled at the security guard standing in the doorway. Without thinking about it, Steve declared, “Bleeding heart.”

The man nodded while adjusting his lanyard. “Good title. Where are the rest of the folks who are usually here?”

“Gallery opening.” He threw a dart. Neon green.

“Not at this time of night.”

Steve looked at him. “What time is it?”

“Ooh…” he moved his cuff to read his watch. “quarter ‘til midnight.”

 _Only midnight?_ Steve heaved a sigh with another dart. Wood. “This is the longest night of my life.”

“Had many of those, have you?” the guard teased.

Steve sent a half-hearted look over his shoulder and went to retrieve his darts. “You’d be surprised.”

“I don’t think so. You young people put up with a lot. Working here, I see that better than most folks who forget what it is to be young in an old world. I like seeing how you kids cope with the bullshit we leave behind. Balloons and darts. Brilliant. Turn the lights out when you’re finished. Have a nice night, gentlemen.”

Steve wrenched a particularly stuck dart out of the wood before that last part hit him. He turned to see the studio door swinging shut behind the guard, and Billy doing the same from where he sat on one of the tables. His legs were stretched out, ankles and arms crossed. Feeling Steve’s glare on him, his head turned. “How long have you been here?”

Billy glanced around the room as he said, “Not long.”

Steve wasn’t sure he believed that, but he went back to pulling darts off the wall. His fingertips press, slippery, over the wet and dry layers before he rinses off in the sink. Unable to be bothered with drying the darts, he waves excess water off of one…and sighs. Without looking, he holds it out. He hears the table behind him shift and then Billy takes the dart. His finger taps the plastic fletching to make sure it stays on, and it soars.

Aquamarine.

A pleased sound comes from him. “If more art were like this I could get into it.”

Steve throws his own. Another aquamarine. He peeks at Billy accepting another dart, how he holds the tip of his tongue between his teeth as he releases it. A balloon absolutely explodes with hot pink, earning surprised laughter from both of them.

“Alright,” Billy relinquishes, hitting wood. “I like it. Whose idea was this?”

“Mine,” Steve said, striking latex.

“Like a semester finale, stress relief thing? What are you doing with the boards afterwards?”

“I don’t know. If I’m lucky, nobody will make me haul out eight-foot tall plywood covered in a dozen layers of paint.”

“My mom’s an artist now.”

Running out of darts happened a lot faster with two people. Steve glanced at him, but Billy let him look as they fell into step to retrieve the darts. Steve handed Billy his half and went to the sink to ready the next installment of balloons. When he heard another thunk of wood behind him, he ventured, “Was it hard to find her?”

“Yeah, but only because lawyers are pieces of shit. As if coercing my dad’s into settling the divorce wasn’t enough, it took helping Max and her mom move for me to get into my dad’s paper stash. The thing about divorce—it creates a great paper trail, when it’s not under lock and key. I had to track down a different lawyer. Some asshole who tried to tell me how, as an adult, I wasn’t at liberty to know her details.”

Steve frowned. “Like he would’ve handed them over if you were under eighteen?”

“Doesn’t matter. I got ‘em.” _Shak!_ “She has three kids.”

Steve outright turned around to lean back against the sink. “Besides you?”

“Besides me,” he confirmed.

“She’s still with the guy?”

“Yep.”

“That’s…good. Right?”

_Shak!_

Billy exhaled, rotating a dart between his hands. “They’re not like me.”

“Toothy, you mean?” Steve held the knot of a balloon, bouncing the latex under his hand while Billy gave him a wry look. “Did she explain why?”

“It’s not like any us are letting someone do DNA or whatever tests on us. And I learned she’s an adopted only child, so no theories like ‘it’s only the eldest,’ or shit like that.”

Steve palmed the balloon like a stress ball and crossed his arms. “Then…how’d it go? Overall?”

Billy threw the dart but let his hand swing by his hip, staying in place. “I don’t know.” He exhaled through his nose, pursing his lips in that way he did when he was annoyed. “She was real interested in Max.”

Steve shrugged. “Max is cool.”

“And you.”

“I’m less cool.”

Billy’s eyes slid over him until they rested on the floor. “She asked if I had somebody.”

The high, angled studio lights sparked off dust particles drifting between them. Steve had only flicked two of the light switches on the intimidating panel, illuminating the room like a cavern and casting them in just as much warm light as shadow.

He nibbled the inside of his lip, watching the heel of his shoe roll his foot one way and then the other. “What did you say?”

“I said it wasn’t her business. She took that to mean I did.”

Steve nodded once, understanding. “You get defensive over touchy things.”

Billy made an impatient sound. “God, you two would get along.”

Steve smirked to himself as he pivoted to toss the balloon back into the sink—

“Do I?”

The smile faltered. He peeked up to see Billy waiting. “Do I have somebody?”

Steve’s stomach followed the balloon into the sink. His shallow breaths weren’t cutting it. He inhaled in a rush, leaning to adjust his foot placement and take his weight off the sink. “I just said I need—”

“Time. Time. Time,” Billy cursed. He threw his last dart. The explosion of latex pricked sharply against Steve’s ears. “I don’t need time.”

“Oh, you’re so considerate.”

“You’re not answering no.”

Steve’s jaw moved but no words came out. His eyes wandered like something clever might show up on one of the tables. Billy tilted his chin up, satisfied. Steve shut his eyes during an exhalation, annoyed with himself. “You can’t just come back and expect me to—to _anything_ after a couple of conversations.”

“Thing is, now you’re making my mistake. Thinking that we can handle this better apart. That the time you need is time alone. I’m not doing that fuck up again. You were right: we’re not supposed to do this alone. It’s always been us together when things go right.”

“That’s _not_ the case.” Steve barely held back from guffawing. “You and I seem to remember high school ending differently. Us together was bad chemistry.”

Billy’s hands settled in his pockets as he smiled at the nostalgia of it all. “I remember the exact moments I started loving you.”

So much for breathing. Steve knew there was visible pain on his face, but he couldn’t ignore the glossy warmth in Billy’s tired eyes. “My rebound from you can’t be you. That doesn’t work.”

“I’ve never been your rebound and I’m not starting now.”

“Billy,” Steve sighed. He seemed to be doing more sighing in the last few days than in his entire life. Swaying in the direction of the light switches and the door, Steve just wanted to crash land into bed and—

His thoughts go blank for…a little too long. And then his heart stumbles into double time. His legs aren’t moving.

“ _Billy_ ,” he says, hoping it sounds harder than he feels. He presses his eyes shut, just wanting to open them and be in his apartment. Billy’s influence holds him there as he circles around Steve’s front. “You’ve never done this to m—”

Billy’s lips touched his, and the world tipped over. Billy kissed him with turns of his head, pushing Steve’s lips open and learning their topography as if the alley never happened. Or wasn’t enough. Nearly enough. The kiss turned sloppy, with Steve mewling into Billy’s mouth and _ah!_ ing at Billy pulling on his lip with his teeth.

“Billy. Billy—” he breathed like a broken record. “You can’t. We can’t.”

He outright trembled at the husk in Billy’s voice. The claim in it. “Every single piece of you wants me. Let it want me. I’m going to make love to you because having you inside me again is the only thing keeping me fucking breathing. _Steve_.”

Steve felt fucked stupid already. His face felt too hot, lips swollen and dumbly hanging open, his eyes unable to focus. Slutty sounds he hadn’t uttered in a long time flew out of him as Billy dragged his teeth over Steve’s earlobe, the start of a tormenting path down his neck. Every kiss, every bite that bruised but didn’t break skin, sent agonizing darts of need through him.

Billy’s hand on his nape moved so his thumb could stroke Steve’s cheek. He sounded just as out of breath. “If you don’t put your hands on me, I swear—”

Steve bodily pushed him against the wall of cabinets next to the sink. Billy’s words melted into blissed out sounds of surprise and lust. Steve’s hands forced themselves between the doors and Billy’s ass, sliding and kneading that made Billy’s voice soft. Steve’s lips kissed and dragged across his neck, but when he pinched Billy’s skin between his teeth, Billy all but howled.

Some sort of jolt of reality made Steve huff, “We can’t do this here.”

“Steve,” Billy whined.

“Come on.”

_“Steve.”_

_“Home.”_

The walk to the condo was the most time-blurring experience until they were confined in the elevator. Steve felt Billy’s presence all around him the way a canopy bed holds sleep-inducing shadow. Dizzying and heady—had it always been this way? Mind numbing magnetism that made him punch an extra button of the elevator on accident. Billy would have had his way then and there with the extra time, and then again on the apartment door.

“Mm!” Steve tried, but Billy’s lips on his mouth and hands on his belt were relentless. “Let me—let me unlock it!”

He successfully rotated despite Billy’s body pressing him into every surface they contact along the way. He kisses Steve’s exposed nape, the blazer wonkily pulled off his shoulders. Steve’s forehead pressed against the door as Billy pulled his hips back to roll his erection against Steve’s ass. Somehow, the key grates into the lock, and they’re bursting inside, only to slam back onto the door on the other side. Billy finally undid his pants and has two handfuls of _Steve_ , front and back. It’s all Steve can do, to hold onto his shoulders.

“Billy! _Fuck—ah!_ ” he cries. Sharp waves of pleasure shoot through him, almost hurting, it feels so good. “Hangon,hangon—Wait!”

His stability on Billy’s shoulders plummeted with Billy down to his throbbing erection. Steve’s body hit the door again, lest he keel over Billy intent on pushing his nose against Steve’s hair, mouth on his balls. He uttered some kind of curse that was lost on Steve’s frayed and wildly sparking nerves. All he could pick up was, “ _Your smell_ …”

“Billy,Isweartogod,” he exploded.

“Oh? You want him to hear?”

Steve wasn’t sure if he was going to die or ejaculate on Billy’s face if he insisted on using that voice. “No jokes! Make me come— _gah_! Holy shit, this _hurts_.”

“I’ve got you,” he cooed, extending an arm up Steve’s torso. The latter held it to his sternum like an umbrella in a storm. “Christ, I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.”

Steve had a short circuit in his brain when he felt himself slide into Billy’s hot and wet mouth, and the fangs framing him in. “B-Be careful—Ohmygod—with those!”

Billy only chuckled around him, his thumb massaging the base of his penis as he slid at a tormenting pace. Too slow to cum and fast enough to make Steve beg for it. “Billy, please! Just a little—little faster, ah!”

Billy dug his fingertips into Steve’s chest, not enough to scratch and hurt, but to drag over the expanse of sensitivity underneath his collarbones. He couldn’t wait to get his tongue on Steve’s chest, to feel the ripples of Steve’s aura that happened when he played that sensitive area like a piano. As they were, Steve’s own trembling and suppressed thrusts into his mouth did him in. A hand gave a weak pat on his head before Steve gripped his hair and—

Billy pulled off as he came, shooting his cream down Billy’s neck and chest. Steve panted above him, his voice sighing out with every heave from his chest. Billy relished the view, licking the cum dribbling out of his cockhead. When he stood up, Steve’s hands hung behind him as he rested his arms on those shoulders. His eyes wandered Billy’s chest, seeing himself glistening there, and _fuck_. Billy looked so good.

His head tilted to claim Steve’s mouth, soft and chapped from sucking him. Steve pried a hand between them to wipe saliva off his chin, under his jaw. Billy’s mouth moved to his cheek, his temple. “God, Steve, I missed this. I missed you so bad.”

Steve didn’t want to think. Didn’t have the emotional stamina anymore, for anything other than this raging need that wasn’t calming down. He guided Billy’s face to kiss the spot behind his ear, and lounged in the feeling of a hot tongue there. He bit Billy’s neck again, and the growl that came out of him was so satisfying. Steve rubbed himself against Billy, rolling his hips against the erection in merciless jeans.

Billy all but lifted him off the door, an arm like iron behind Steve’s waist as the latter stumbled backward in the direction of the bedroom. Billy’s impatience began to shine double-fold as he wrenched off his jacket and Steve’s blazer. Belt buckles clattered harshly on the new floors. Steve’s pants were already halfway down, making his path backwards a test in momentum until he planted his feet. Billy just walked right into him, intent on reaching a bed which wasn’t where he thought it’d be.

“Wait—hey, hey,” Steve halted. A glimmer of clarity lifted his eyes to see Steve pointing to the bed now against the window.

The man’s confusion was cute as he properly looked around for the first time. “You really changed everything.”

Steve didn’t want to talk, so he reached for Billy’s shirt. The time it took to undo one button induced Billy pulling the whole thing apart. Threads popped and Steve blurted, “That’s a nice shirt!”

“Hush,” Billy scolded, finding his nape once more. In between plundering kisses he added, “I want you on my skin.”

Then he stepped back, giving Steve full view of him unbuttoning his jeans and shoving them down. For a brief second, it hit Steve what they were about to do, but the thought fizzled out in his already overheated brain. Hell, the thought tumbled down the cliff face that was Billy’s delicate spattering of chest hair, the elegant line of his waist, those stupidly pretty hips, and hair as dark as his brows and lashes crowning his cock. Steve’s hair ballooned out of his shirt when he yanked it off. He heel-toed his shoes off and stepped out of his clothes with far less grace than Billy—Billy, who stroked himself in the meantime, red and hard and—

“I’mhmnot redhumave the lube.”

Billy blinked, and then lifted a smile that truly tested Steve’s ability to not pass the hell out. “What?”

“It’s, um,” he rasped, pressing his eyes shut and commanding his one functioning brain cell to focus. He swallowed loudly. “It’s been a while. For me.”

“I said I wanted you inside me, didn’t I?”

Billy stepped forward, and this time, the kisses were different. Steve fell into them with _relief_. This raw, pent up body knew his, trusted his. Billy’s hands slid up his back, not so much fisting his hair but massaging his scalp, supporting his neck while humming back to Steve’s pathetic mewling…

He did grip Steve’s hair enough to pull him back. The speckling of urban lights outside the window allowed him to see blown out eyes boring into his. “It’s been a while?”

“Huh?”

“It’s _been a while?_ ”

Steve shook his head gently. What was he trying to talk about? “What?”

But he could only hold onto Billy as he rotated them toward the bed and Steve landed on his back with a huff. Billy found the lube bottle with unnerving speed. With a flick of his thumb, he looked through the cap at the seal underneath. “Why is this new?”

“Why are you talking?” he retorted, adjusting his position on the bed. But Billy made the mattress bounce as he straddled Steve’s thighs and yanked the pillow right out of his hand that he was trying to move under his head.

“Did you finish the last bottle?”

Steve’s brain was really working overtime, for fuck’s sake. “No? It was yours. I had to get rid of it.”

A wolfish smile bloomed above him. “This one’s brand new.”

“Well I _thought_ I’d be using it soon. Maybe.”

“Hush,” Billy scolded again, twisting off the lid.

“You’re the one talking so damn much…” He watched with a dumbfounded gape as the seal flew somewhere to be rediscovered tomorrow. “There’s a bin, _right here_ —”

Billy laughed over him. “Go ahead. Nag me some more.” He twisted the lid in place and squeezed. Steve remained stubbornly silent. Or maybe it was the cold lube squishing between Billy’s hot hand and his penis. With the one hand, he massaged and pumped Steve back to full readiness, and the other reached behind him for himself.

Steve palmed his knees and moved up his thighs, one hand a little higher than the other in offering. “Do you want me to…?”

He didn’t answer right away. Steve peered up at him to see Billy just looking at him through hooded eyes. “Yeah,” he rasped. “I want you to.”

Steve reached between Billy’s strong thighs and underneath his balls. Sitting up, he felt Billy’s hot and heavy erection against his belly while he circled Billy’s hole. The latter eased himself closer when Steve pulled a cheek aside for better access. He rested his head on Billy’s shoulder as he reached for the lube, adding to his fingers before pressing inside. Billy immediately thrust gently over his hand.

“Wait.” Steve’s other hand gripped his thigh while Billy panted above him. “I have to do this right.”

“You have a very limited amount of time before I lose my shit— _ah-huh!_ ”

Biting the muscle curving between Billy’s neck and shoulder had the desired effect. Steve felt Billy dripping precum as he pushed two fingers inside, scissoring against his prostate and trying to open him as gently and quickly as possible. His eyes fluttered closed against Billy’s lips on his brows, his temple and cheek. His nose buried in Steve’s hair, breathing him in as he rode Steve’s hand. He sat low on those fingers when a third pushed inside him.

“Enough.”

Steve’s fingers slid out of him when Billy pushed back onto the bed. Holding his shoulders, Billy shimmied up to let Steve line himself up. Steve swallowed thickly, more focused on Billy’s hands exploring his torso; fingertips grazing his chest and palms around his ribcage…

“Breathe, baby,” he cooed over him. Stiffening an arm on the bed to hold himself up, Billy used his other one to lift Steve’s waist, giving his lower ribs the space to inhale. After a couple moments, Steve’s senses focused on his heartbeat between his ears, and then how it was calming down. He hadn’t realized he’d gone that far in forgoing the necessity for air altogether.

“Sorry,” he heaved, stabilizing as Billy set him down.

Billy hovered over him to kiss between his brows, the side of his mouth. “Do you wanna be on top?”

He gave it some thought and decided, “I think I’m better off down here.”

Billy chuckled and sat flush over him, sliding all the way down to sit on Steve’s thighs. Steve lurched up at the surge of tight heat around him, and then melted over the mattress. “G-God, Billy…”

He only chuckled as he lifted Steve’s hands onto his body and began to move. Steve gazed at that soft, arrogant expression on his face, the full shape of his mouth around a peek of teeth holding the tip of his tongue. He knew his dick pulsed inside him when Billy’s expression creased in a pleasurable grimace, those dark brows furrowing over clamped eyes. “Use those hands, Harrington,” he growled huskily.

Steve huffed, but he was already pushing a hand up the underside of Billy’s cock, catching the head between two fingers before spiraling a thumb over it. He squeezed his fingers into a ring around him, the lube on his hand making it an easy and excruciating drag to the base. Billy shuddered in body and voice, before he bucked against him.

“Agh! _Damnit_ ,” Steve cursed, holding onto Billy’s hips as the bastard giggled.

“Don’t stop on my account.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You love it.”

Steve didn’t reply. He just weathered through Billy’s pace returning to a comfortable ride, taking his time—

“Say it,” Billy whispered, bowing over him so he could touch Steve’s lips.

“You’re ridiculous,” he repeated defiantly. His teeth caught Billy’s thumb. “And bossy,” he pursed against the pad.

A smile flashed on his face. “You love it.”

Steve released him and felt his own spit on the side of his mouth as Billy stroked his cheek. “I can’t reach up there to make you stop talking.”

“Yes you could. What’s stopping you?”

Billy had almost halted his thrusts over Steve, and one of them was not happy about it. “Some of us have the old age to make us more aware of spinal concerns.”

And then Billy—being _Billy_ —bowed low over him just to prove a fucking point. That he could nuzzle Steve’s mouth if he wanted. Tease a kiss without delivering, if he wanted. Leave Steve’s mouth hanging open for it.

“Do you want me to fix your neck?” he asked without any sarcasm or teasing. Just softly panting breaths that Steve knew meant he was also eager to keep going.

“Later,” Steve’s hand pushed up the side of Billy’s head to feel his hair, to follow the curve of his ear and move the pads of his fingers over the clean-shaven skin just beginning to hint at stubble.

Billy grinned against his lips, letting himself be pulled down. “Later.”

It wasn’t until Steve had finally passed out that his dreams tumbled around that word. _Later_. A promise he discarded without care, and then Billy returned it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am NOT over how brilliant The Princess Diaries is. A renovated firehouse? Artist mom? Balloons and darts???? *cough* so....is there a Harringrove Princess Diaries au, or....?


	4. Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hi, it's me again, uploading to the epilogue instead of the main story again ~

Steve woke out of restless habit a couple times in the night. He’d gotten good at just ignoring consciousness and falling back asleep, but one of these times was more coherent. An ache that something needed his attention, like a bladder or a phone. Or just his stupid brain wanting to lift his body out of comfort.

He heard himself hum through the fog of slumber, but something blocked his arms trying to move. Something heavy—

 _“Stay,”_ a tired voice moaned against his neck. A breath traveled across Steve’s throat, making him aware that Billy was all over him. Face against his neck, leg tossed over his thigh, and now an arm came up to curl over Steve’s chest. Heavy and large, all Steve could do was yank his numb arm out from underneath him. Steve’s body pivoted towards him a little, his cheek pillowed against soft hair. Not even Steve’s brain could combat a sleeping vampire.

* * *

Steve slept through the groggy ebb and flow of waking and dreaming, but when he realized sunlight shined around him, he woke with finality. It’s a special thing, the blissed-out stillness of those first seconds of consciousness. The light moves differently and the world is a little more visceral in the gentlest way…

Steady breathing turns his head, and Steve almost laughs, because there’s a grown ass man beside him, and it’s a lot like a reaction he had so long ago.

But then something else bats the feeling around Steve’s ribcage. A strange kind of sadness at seeing the person he loved right next to him. Proof that yesterday happened. A whole person is more than a soda bottle being ignored in the fridge. The person who turned him inside out and then folded him back neatly for safekeeping.

Before leaving him behind.

Who now sleeps right next to him with sunlight sparking off his caramel blond hair. The person he loves.

Seeing Billy in the daylight is…different. Like he’s finally real. The pain in Steve’s chest begins to ease as he turns on his side to mirror Billy. His hair shadows his eyes but pieces of sunlight soak his cheek and jaw, the tip of his nose. It glows on the dome of his shoulder and shimmers in the blond hairs of his arm. But Steve can now see the bags under Billy’s eyes, the subtle line of a vein under the fragile skin. Billy is thinner. He’s still a slab of muscle, but the gym rat must’ve been traveling a lot to atrophy.

He looks younger. And older.

Something delicate rests behind his parted lips, sunken eyes, and the upturned hand resting against Steve’s torso. Billy said he was off blood. Steve wondered how much that mattered. Probably a lot. It had been an obnoxious surprise when Billy first told him that he could intake both food or blood, but he had always been adamantly for the second option.

A lot happened. First Billy happened, and then the Mind Flayer happened, and somewhere in all that, Steve happened. Falling in love wasn’t the plan. Get bitten, fall asleep— _that_ was the plan. Win-win for both of them. Billy gets his blood, and Steve loses his nightmares. But then Hawkins turned upside-down for the umpteenth time…and Billy and Steve weren’t just dealing with each other anymore. Steve looked forward to seeing him. Billy still teased him, but it didn’t involve knocking him down anymore.

It involved picking him up. Keeping each other alive. Fighting the nights so they could greet the mornings together.

Steve lied. It had never been easy. But it was always wanted. Steve had the weird talent and attraction for people with friction. Even Nancy had an edge. He liked how she talked back, and didn’t take the shit he said just because he had nice hair, a big house, and money for beer. People he could rub against to see what kind of fire started.

Billy’s had been more than he could handle, at first. Back when Billy had a lot of sand still on him from his glorious California, creating friction with everything that walked. That sand had been burned into a glass shell around him long before he got to Steve, but their fight together left cracks in it. Steve’s blood seeped right in—his Upside-Down polluted blood that proved a tiny, accidental vaccine when the Mind Flayer came. When the Mind Flayer shattered everything Billy had built around him…except Steve.

He almost laughed again as his neck ached with the muscle memory of the Flayer’s mistake. The moment Steve’s stupid hero complex moved him in front of Billy, and got his neck broken for it. But Billy was already inside him too. For all of Steve’s complaints and jokes, Billy’s venom kept him alive.

Billy was not wrong. Things did go right when they were together. Because if Billy had never happened, Steve would’ve died. And if Steve hadn’t happened, Billy would have too.

No, they’d never been easy. They were always a fight waiting to happen, but when they stopped circling each other like sharks, the ocean had a hell of a pair swimming around with their obnoxious little pilot fish.

_I remember the exact moments I started loving you._

Fuck if Steve didn’t too. When he realized he finally saw Billy as a person instead of a perpetual douche bag. When he first saw a glimpse of softness behind Billy’s cracks. The first time he successfully conned Billy into showing those delicate parts, much to Billy’s chagrin and Steve’s amusement.

When Billy volunteered those soft moments. When they both realized that Billy wasn’t a taker, not really. After Steve broke his neck and it was all Billy could do, to _give_. To provide Steve with as much of his venom as possible to relieve the pain, to make him heal faster, to help him sleep. Billy liked taking care of him. Just as Steve had learned the hard way who he truly was—a graceless dork who, time and again, seemed willing to die for what his heart believed in—Billy found himself. When he finally peeled off the arrogance, the bravado…Steve caught him. Steve loved the vampire that Billy hated.

He loved making Billy smile—really smile. The muscles in his face did different things when he actually relaxed….

Steve pushed himself off the bed. There were years he could relive while gazing at Billy’s sleeping face, but Steve had to draw a line between creep and lovesick.

He felt both heavy and floating on his way to the shower. He wasn’t ready to think about Rebecca. Never in a million years would he have considered himself a cheater. Was he one now? He told her not to wait for him, but things had gotten pretty far…

He sighed into the water falling over his face. Here he is, thinking.

The only person to whom he’d labeled Rebecca as Girlfriend was Billy. But did the label really matter? If it hurts, it hurts…and he didn’t want Rebecca to hurt. Steve was pretty sure he was on his way to loving her before Billy showed up with his cruel and glorious timing. Steve sure as hell didn’t have life dreams, but Rebecca did. He was pretty sure he’d been ready to follow her through them, whether that took them to New York or California or elsewhere.

Pretty sure.

Senior year really is a countdown to a question mark.

Steve’s thoughts swerved into a different direction, because if he lost Rebecca, then he lost the whole art department, didn’t he? He couldn’t blame Dylan or Peter for choosing her. It was a natural thing with break ups—or the ending of questionably labeled things—for friends to side with one person or the other. And they worked alongside or near Rebecca 24/7. Not only did they know her first, but it’s illogical for them to go against someone they see all the time. Steve was easier to part with.

_Okay, ouch. That’s it, enough thinking for one morning—_

“Are you leaning against the wall with your arms crossed? In the shower?”

Steve’s heart nearly broke out of his chest, and Billy chuckled because he knew. Reaching for the shampoo, Steve remarked, “I forgot you can basically see through walls.”

“I’m surprised NASA hasn’t shown up, your vibe is blocking out the sun,” Billy returned. Steve frowned at the toothbrush— _his_ toothbrush—sticking into the shower to wet the toothpaste on it.

“You’re nasty.”

“Why?”

“That’s my toothbrush!”

“You already used it.” He could hear the shrug in Billy’s voice, and then the swish of bristles across teeth.

Steve quickly cleaned his genitals since he didn’t trust Billy to just brush his teeth. Some things deserved to be done in whatever remote privacy a needy vampire allowed. Sure enough, as he smoothed conditioner over his hair, Billy’s voice traveled behind him. “You’re brooding awfully hard on something.”

Was it possible to die from hair products in the eyes? Because Steve might be willing to take one for the team. _Team_ being Steve, and the horrible guilt that was screwing around with gratification in his chest.

“I noticed these before.” Billy touched a spot on the back of Steve’s shoulder. “You have these scars on your chest.”

Steve glanced back when he touched him, but he refocused on soaping up his torso. “Glass fell into my shirt.”

“How does glass break so that it falls into a shirt? Much less slice you open?”

Steve pivoted his shoulders to let the water wash away the suds. “Well, first a girl smashes a mai tai on your head, then her boyfriend shoves you down so you get trampled a little bit. Do that for a few weekends in a row.”

Billy stood silent behind him for a minute, and then Steve felt lips on his shoulder. “A regular club night in Chicago.”

His mouth and the tip of his nose slid across the tops of his shoulders to the other side, and then up the curve of Steve’s neck.

“Billy,” he murmured.

“Hm?” Steve’s lashes sagged low over his eyes in the wake of kisses behind his ear, of hot breath tickling him.

“Billy,” he repeated, but he wasn’t sure the _Stop_ in it registered. His glance back just pushed his face more into Billy’s, and a hand on his waist urged him to keep turning around. Steve’s brow furrowed in time with his penis kicking to meet the tingles Billy churned up, nibbling on his ear.

Then Billy’s hand turned his face the rest of the way, and Steve was lost in wet, sliding lips. Billy dressed in peppermint tasted _good_ , but their tongues fucked together even after the mint was gone. Steve’s mouth gaped against Billy’s when a hand pumped his erection, and Billy uttered a soft, “ _Hey_.”

Steve’s eyes opened, darkly hooded with sleep and sex. A small, tired smirk lifted Billy’s lips. “Don’t slip,” he purred, and Steve blinked stupidly before understanding sucked hard on his cockhead.

From a far off place in Steve’s brain, he heard a familiar voice say, _You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington._

Billy’s fingers slid all the way up his tailbone and all the way back to his balls, giving them a fond lift before concentrating on Steve’s entrance. He was sure Steve could feel him chuckle in response to the delayed retort, “Don’t drown.”

But Billy only sucked him deep a few times before fully concentrating on Steve’s ass. He hummed appreciatively when Steve took hold of the metal bar, leaning his weight to one side and poising his foot on Billy’s leg. Billy gripped that raised thigh, relishing Steve’s gasp when he squeezing and the grip on his hair when he weathered the thin, stretchy skin between his teeth.

Billy pushed his fingers inside, taking care to go slow and gently. He grazed his teeth across Steve’s hipbone before kissing his skin, tasting him. The shallow dip inside the bone is one of Steve’s weak spots, so Billy kisses there too—and bites sharply at the flesh of Steve’s lower belly without breaking the skin.

Billy chuckles at Steve’s outcry, spreading his fingers a little more and deeper. He works Steve open enough to torment his prostate with ease and goes back to pumping the front—

A tap on his head. “The water’s uncomfortable.”

The word leaves Steve’s mouth in a rush as Billy stands up and turns him to face the wall. Now between Steve and the torrent is Billy, who can barely feel it compared to his need to push his cock between Steve’s cheeks. He likes watching the expansion of Steve’s shoulder blades while he breathes, resting his head against the wall and holding onto the wall rod.

Billy kisses his nape, moving the dark tresses out of the way with his face. There was a time when Steve didn’t like this arrangement, Billy being where he couldn’t see him. Steve had said he didn’t trust him _back there_. Billy had called him a romantic sap. Romantic Steve, wanting to see the person who fucks him.

“Can you take me?” he asked now.

Steve sighed, “Probably.”

Billy’s mouth grazed his ear, earning stuttering breath and a hitched shoulder. “Don’t sound so defeated.”

His fingers found Steve again, just brushing over his entrance before circling around to pull Steve back against his chest. Steve’s hand overlapped his. “What’re you doing?”

Billy chuckled over his shoulder. “ _It’s been a while_ , right? We’re not back to being able to do this with just steam and water yet.”

Steve looked over his shoulder with a stern tilt to his gaze, making Billy back off enough for Steve to fully face him again. Billy’s lashes fluttered when Steve’s hands cradled his head, pushed his mouth open to find his fangs. Billy lifted blue, wondering irises at him.

“How long’s it been?” he challenged.

A flash of stoicism, that shield Billy hid behind while he made a decision…but he groaned quietly as his fangs slid out, betraying him. His eyes pressed shut and his mouth hung open, both to make room and because he couldn’t hold his eyeteeth in his gums anymore. The points of his teeth pressed into his lip as he swallowed, chest rising and falling as those blue eyes found dark ones again.

Then his pupils blew wide when Steve uttered, “You can.”

Billy searched his face for misunderstanding, but Steve just waited for him. He shook his head. “It’s dangerous in here.”

“My body remembers you.”

He could see the effect those words had on Billy. The struggle to hold his eyes open, heavy with desire. The pulse of his heartbeat in his erection against Steve’s thigh. The way Billy whispered his name.

“ _Steve_ …I’m not sure I can take care of you right now. Like this…”

His lashes sagged closed when Steve leaned forward to grasp his lip in his teeth, giving it the gentlest tug that had Billy gripping the pole on either side of Steve’s pelvis. The veins underneath Billy’s eyes were more prominent than ever, his lips flushed almost red. “I’m telling you, _you can_.”

Billy’s breath shuddered out of him. He licked his lips, swallowed a loud, wet gulp. Steve indulged himself with pressing his face against the column of Billy’s throat, forcing the vampire to stand very still as he felt Billy’s heat and heard his heart pounding. Billy inhaled against the vulnerable press of lips against his adam’s apple and windpipe.

When Steve came back up, he kissed Billy’s cheek and pressed their noses together. “I’m sure you can.”

Billy can’t help but think how, in a shower with a ravenous vampire, Steve is the dangerous one.

He licked a long line up Steve’s neck before he meant to, pushing Steve’s chin up so his head rested against the wall, throat exposed. Billy found the heartbeat against the flat of his tongue, and let his lips hover there. Steve’s rhythm may as well have been his own ricocheting between his ears. Billy wanted to fall into his aura like he used to, let Steve catch him and consume him—

A hand slid behind Billy’s neck, and it was all he could do to hold onto the bar and lock an arm around Steve’s waist. His teeth punctured with a sound like delicate grape skin. Billy didn’t want to overwhelm him, so he retracted his fangs quickly—but Steve’s hand slid off Billy’s neck to be caught between their bodies.

As quickly as Steve is pitched into the venom haze, the suction of Billy’s mouth spikes right down his body and through his penis. He was already hard and wanting when they started this, but his endurance is gone. He’s coming on Billy’s skin and shuddering into velvet growls.

For Billy, the taste is one thing, but consuming is completely another. To be without blood—to be without Steve—for so long, his vertigo flips. He’s holding onto Steve just as much as vice versa. Billy can’t tell the ceiling from the floor; it’s all silk and plush and warm. With Steve around him, he doesn’t care.

It’s his venom healing the wound that draws Billy back. Steve’s skin closing against his tongue and Steve’s chest lifting against his own, panting together like they’ve been running…

Steve’s hands hold his head, lifting Billy off his neck and the wall behind him to claim his mouth. It’s truly red now and Steve wants it, wants the soft hum that comes out of Billy when he tastes himself, his own salt. When Billy opens drugged eyes to see red smearing Steve’s mouth, he looks almost in pain, unafraid and overwhelmed by Steve’s acceptance.

Water drenched their faces when Steve reached past him for the tap, but the water shutting off is loud, like a weird spell has paused. Billy blinks vacantly and looks up when Steve giggles. “Still standing.”

Billy wrenches the curtain wide open and doesn’t remove his arm from Steve’s waist until they’re tumbling back into bed.

“The water! Ugh…” Steve bemoans—and sighs right into Billy entering him. Water and lube soak into the sheets, forgotten as Billy bites the other side of Steve’s neck. “Ahh— _fuck_. Ah, fuck! Billy…”

The latter simply wrapped Steve’s leg around him, and when he finished with Steve’s neck, he bit a nipple, and then left red lip prints across Steve’s chest and on the inside of his wrist. Billy hadn’t always been this messy, but he submerged himself in Steve’s wanton cries, the buck of their hips together, the slide of a foot over his leg and all of the places Steve gripped him.

When he came, he spurted in time with Billy’s thrusts. It was the kind of orgasm that wringed out his soul, and Billy grinned above him because he knew. He picked up his speed to follow quickly, but the stupid vampire came down for more. Steve shoved his face aside, trying to roll over with a weak grumble for sleep.

Billy fit himself behind Steve, holding onto him like a tether. He tried to hold Steve’s hand, but he could feel Steve’s energy going under, lulled by his bites into a deep sleep.

“Steve,” he tried to call, out of breath and ready to follow him down. He nuzzled behind Steve’s ear. “You’re it. You’re it for me.”

* * *

The bed is only mildly damp when Billy steps out of it. He feels _good_. A little drunk in the best way. He looks back at Steve sleeping as Steve does—half suffocating himself in the burrow of comforter and pillows. Billy presses a knee into the mattress to kiss his shoulder, his tricep, and earn a curt, _“Huh,”_ from Steve’s dreams.

Billy looks around the room properly this time. The floors are nice; the kind of light wood that aged to a pale, elegant grey. It goes nicely with the vibrant art hanging around the room. From the _art department_ friends, he assumes. He doesn’t have to look in the dresser to know his things aren’t in there, but he does anyway. He peruses the walk-in and holds Steve’s newer shirts against his face, inhales the factory smell still wearing away and scrutinizes various Anaheim merchandise between his fingers.

The living room is more of a shock. The couch has been completely overwritten with embroidery—

Billy backs off of it as soon as he smells her on it. Really, he smells a lot of people on it, but her smell lingers there the strongest.

Billy’s garments are still on the floor, but his steps take him to some framed things on the wall. Even more pictures have been pinned to the new paint: large and glossy photos of a pizza party. She’s there, just like she’s with Steve in smaller shots of Disneyland.

_You went to California?_

He gazes for a long time at a picture of them in front of the castle, posing with an arm around each other as well as the tall friend with ginger hair. He eases the picture up to see if anything is written on the back, and sure enough:

_The three idiots w/ Aurora’s crib. Rebecca, Steve, and Peter. ‘90_

_Dylan, you’re here too –R_

_Documenting stupidity –D_

_I look great! –P_

_Xoxo –S_

There are pictures on a beach too. Billy reads, _Two minutes before Peter got us kicked off._

_Who knew weed’s actually illegal here? –P_

_Pretty sure it was you throwing pancakes at seagulls and making the dogs go nuts –S_

_Leash laws are bullshit –P_

_You’re the reason they exist, Peter –R_

Steve looks good on the beach. Way too pale, with the wind blowing his hair in his face, smiling underneath his wayfarers as he stands around like he hasn’t quite figured out sand yet. He looks good.

Billy inhales, and exhales as he turns away from the wall of memories he wasn’t a part of. His gaze lands on the tapestry, recognizing driftwood immediately. He likes it. Reminds him of the shells his mother keeps around her own house.

Didn’t something else use to hang here?

The kitchen is as nice as the floors, but he pads quietly past it to the guest room. Her fragrance is in here too, but there’s another smell. An aged, dusty version of something he hasn’t felt in a long time.

Billy opens the guest drawers, and there he is. His red curtain. His clothes. Shoes, CD’s, tapes, VHS’s. The earrings he left behind—everything he left behind.

_Panic attacks for eight months…_

It definitely wasn’t his brightest decision—Billy was ready to rank it as the dumbest and most inconsiderate thing he’d ever done—and Steve had every reason to lose his shit. Billy had left without taking his valuables, the things that would’ve made more sense to take along. Earrings to pawn for cash. CD’s and tapes to make the road trips more bearable. But if he didn’t tear himself away, he never would’ve left.

Steve didn’t throw any of it away.

Billy picked up a piece of paper so worn out, it was soft like fabric. Several pieces of tape had been folded over the top of his handwriting. Billy frowned at that, but let it drift back into the drawer…over his own face.

He lifted the polaroids out, immediately feeling a smile pull at his lips. His and Steve’s first night in Chicago: with Steve wearing a ridiculous costume, plastic crown and looking shocked at the camera because he’d been too busy talking or singing to notice. Billy sat just within frame, looking smug while holding Steve’s jaw so he faced the camera.

Billy set the photos back inside the drawer without going through the rest. He didn’t need to. Didn’t want to—

The kitchen phone started ringing. Billy stepped out of the guest room, and pinched the plastic end of the cord with a tug to disconnect it in one motion. He looked in Steve’s direction, listening and reading the energy from the main bedroom. Steve only shifted his head on a pillow and slept on. Billy planned to keep it that way. He may have left so Steve could keep doing his college plans, but he wasn’t leaving again. He’d sooner rip out his own fangs.

It had been a year. Steve could give Billy a full day to be selfish.

Or he would take it.

* * *

Steve woke to the sounds of kitchen tinkering. At the notion of food, his stomach groaned and gurgled. Rolling over and easing himself from the bed really involved more bone popping than anyone talked about for your twenties, especially as he reached for the t-shirt and night shorts he’d left on the dresser last…night?

Steve scratched at his scruff as he gauged the time of day—more like evening. He didn’t feel like taking a whole other shower, so he cleaned Billy off his thighs, cleaned himself off his torso, and got dressed to shave. Clothes and shaving, normal things. Maybe brush his teeth again for good measure.

Clean the bite marks on his neck. Less normal, but there they were. Steve swiveled his head in the mirror, and couldn’t help the small huff that escaped him.

 _You haven’t known normal since ’83_.

Bone crackling aside, he couldn’t deny that he felt good. Worn out in the best way. More well rested than he got from a bottle of red wine. He wasn’t sure if he was just amused at the irony of soaping up vampire bites again or what, but he did better at letting his brain not dwell on things this time.

His glass of water chimed with the razor hitting it after each swipe, and soon Steve felt more like himself again. He was putting lotion on his face when he heard the clatter of something in the bedroom, and then Billy slid behind him. “Tell me you made enough for t-two— _ahm!_ ”

Billy’s teeth took Steve’s ear hostage while folding his arms around him. Steve all but melted at the sound of his quiet laughter when his stomach loudly protested. “Why? Hungry?”

Steve meant to move, but in doing so felt Billy half-ready behind him. He stared over his shoulder. “Did you cook naked?”

“What about it?” he challenged, reaching into Steve’s shorts. If his nerves were silk threads, Billy’s teeth strummed and his hands plucked. All of Steve felt drawn in Billy’s direction, vibrating, and the cocky bastard grinned against his hair. Rubbed himself against Steve’s ass.

“You’re doing this on purpose.”

“What do you mean?”

“ _Billy—Christ!_ ” he huffed against the drag across his ear.

“You’re more sensitive now.”

“Maybe I’ll get my ears pierced just to keep you from doing that.”

“Please don’t,” Billy purred, kissing Steve’s smooth jaw.

Steve tried his best not to completely thrust into Billy’s hand, but he was caught between a hand and a hard place. “Did you just say _please_? Ah…”

Billy pushed his shorts down and his shirt up to begin a trail of kisses down Steve’s spine, smiling against his skin when he doubled over the vanity willingly. He gasped against Billy’s fingers finding residual lubricant and outright cursed when Billy pushed into him to the hilt.

Steve knocked the razor into the sink, practically throwing the cup into it as well to make room for himself resting entirely on the counter, cushioning his face on his forearms. He moaned against Billy’s slow, testing thrusts, and then planted a hand against the mirror when he began to have his way, slapping into him. His voice escaped with each thrust, and Billy felt just as heady with Steve’s little pushes back into him.

They came as quickly as they started. Billy held pink imprints on Steve’s hips before gripping the counter too. Steve stood up to yank a tissue out of the box on the toilet while Billy watched him fondly. “I like you when you first wake up.”

The glare Steve meant to send him broke against that warm expression. “ _Did_ you make food?”

Billy halfheartedly rolled his eyes, “It’s by the bed,” and opened the shower curtain—

Steve grabbed his chin to lay a loud one right on his mouth. “Thanks.”

He succeeded in getting Billy to watch him leave through stupefied eyes before he smirked and went to take a proper shower. Steve found chicken fried rice in a bowl large enough to feed four people, except he didn’t have rice, so Billy used elbow macaroni.

It tasted incredible.

Billy emerged from the shower to Steve changing the sheets. “You’re no fun,” he crooned as the new fabric got shoved underneath the mattress.

“I’m not sleeping in moldy sheets,” Steve disregarded. He watched Billy pilfering in his drawers before he added, “I saw your shirt hanging in the laundry.”

“Yeah. Fancier stuff has to air dry.” He exchanged his towel for drawstring sweatpants.

Steve looked away when he did a little hop to get through the elastic hems. Honey tresses made dark from the shower, skin glimmering from the steam, limbs lose and—

It was really unreasonable. Steve shook his head and went about making the bed with more enthusiasm. “So..um, do you have…?”

“Luggage?” Billy picked up. Steve met his smirk but there was something kind in it. “Yeah, I have luggage.”

He watched Steve nod at the floor, grasping his hips and doing his over thinking routine. He licked his lips, twice gesturing with his hand like that might get a sentence started. He exhaled with furrowed brows, “Um.”

Billy rotated to face him, his fingertips sliding over the dresser behind him. “While you’re figuring out how to tell me that you haven’t decided to get back together or not, I’ll ignore your stares at my body and how your vibe changes the longer you look at my face.”

He didn’t grin, but he definitely seemed pleased with himself in the face of Steve’s defiant stare. “Well where is it?” the latter diverted while throwing open the top sheet. “It’s got to be expensive, storing it in a hotel room.”

“I’m sorry,” Billy said quietly. Mirth gone, it was just the two of them standing in the indigo and orange evening. “I don’t know how to get that across. It’s the only reason I left you alone before the gallery, trying to figure it out.”

Steve’s sighed heavily, his hands planted on the mattress from doing his damndest to manage the sheets. “I don’t know if this is something to figure out.”

“I get it, you like her,” Billy all but snapped. “She’s all over this place. Does she have a key?”

“No, she doesn’t have a key,” Steve meant to throw back, but his voice had too much air in it. Quiet.

Billy’s fingers fidget on the dresser. “Why not? You go on trips together. I assume you stayed in hotel rooms together.”

“We’ve only been dating a couple of months,” Steve defended while hugging the comforter to his body. “Nice to know you snoop while I sleep.”

“Your pictures are on full display, dummy.” Billy crossed his arms and resigned himself to sitting back against the dresser. “I still have my key.”

Steve threw the comforter so it unfolded and drifted over the fresh sheets. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

“You didn’t tell me you went to California.”

“So?”

Billy shrugged with a brief puckering of his bottom lip. “Curious choice for vacation, is all.” He could practically feel Steve’s annoyance rolling into anger as he tried to fluff pillows while Billy continued, “Disney…beaches…can’t find those in Florida. And Florida’s Disney is bigger.”

“I didn’t go for you,” he clipped, rising to take his empty bowl to the kitchen. “California’s a big place. It’s not like we’d just bump into each other.” Billy entered the open floor plan at his own pace behind him. “Besides. You didn’t tell me where you were going, remember?”

“It was shitty being in Hawkins without you.”

Steve slouched by the island counter. “Talking about it now doesn’t do anything.”

The former came to stand on the other side of the island, mirroring Steve’s posture apart from his opening a drawer on the side. “Then what about these? Lot of pamphlets here for jobs in California.”

Steve glanced at them, but he wasn’t going to be ashamed for living his goddamn life. “Yeah, I’m graduating in two weeks. What about it? So I did some interviews and tours while I was there? What do you want?”

“I want you to meet my mom in San Francisco. I want to walk you around Haight-Ashbury with my jacket on your shoulders because you lose all logical body heat function when you drink. I want to get high on beaches with you and I want to feel the sun on my face while holding your hand in Castro because I’m a romantic, shit-eating sap now. I want to leave this place behind and keep living my life with you.”

He leaned off the island to inhale. Hell, Steve felt winded. It was a lot. Billy huffed with a hand on his ear, rotating the gold stud. “I want you to get close to my mom’s kids, because I can’t. I…don’t know how. I want you. I left, and I’m sorry, but if I have it my way, I’m taking you with me from here on out.”

Steve had to lean back against the main counter. This was some real world shit, not just undergraduate fuck-ups. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this…San Francisco’s expensive.”

“I’ve got a place waiting.”

“You—You what? You do?”

“A place in Castro,” he nodded once. “It’s a studio but it’s bigger than you’d expect. It’s not like we’ve needed all the space here anyways.”

“I don’t know what Castro is—”

“The queer neighborhood,” Billy put it succinctly. Steve’s features opened as he absorbed that. “It’s practically the gay capital of the country. We’d be normal— _I’d_ be almost normal there. Nobody would bat an eyelash at us.”

“There’d be plenty of lashes batting at you,” Steve retorted quietly. “Can’t button your shirts to save your life.” That earned a cute flash of a smile. “How do you have a studio apartment in San Francisco?”

“I don’t _have it_ yet, but…turns out my mom’s guy is good with properties. He’s holding it for me.”

Steve’s tone dropped with weighty suspicion. “For how long?”

“There’s no due date to this.” Billy’s eyes lolled at him. “It’s probably already mine. My mom said she’d cover the deposit—some gesture of apology in her mind.”

“How rich are these people?” Steve couldn’t help but exclaim.

“I told you she’s an artist. People pay big money for shit that doesn’t make sense.”

Steve uncrossed a hand to hold his face. With unnerving clarity, he realized his heart felt lighter. He wanted to go to San Francisco. He liked the picture Billy painted of sunny streets in the hills and the colorful art communities that would be kind and familiar. It sounded _fun_. And Steve just felt a little bit worse for Rebecca—

“Please stop doing that.”

He looked up to Billy’s soft voice right in front of him. He put his hands on the counter, framing Steve in, and close enough for Steve’s hand to leave his face and rest on Billy’s neck. Their foreheads pressed together, Billy’s nose slowly nuzzling Steve’s. “Stop feeling happy and then making yourself sad.”

Steve’s thumb swiped over his skin. “It sounds a little too good.”

“About time, right?”

A laugh burst out of him. He turned his head so he didn’t outright cough in Billy’s face, but Billy’s turned with him, lips brushing. Steve didn’t kiss him; just hovered in the closeness.

“It won’t be perfect,” Billy said quietly, like it was something fragile. A future together. “But it’ll be us.”

“I’m still pissed at you.”

“I know.” Billy closed the distance. It was as delicate as a butterfly’s wing, but it flowed into them tilting their heads for more. The kind of kisses that let them appreciate touch and time; the soft, malleable space between skin and breath.

“Steve,” he whispered, loving Steve’s surrender into his gentle pecks. “You smell like garlic.”

“Whose fault is that?”

Billy’s smile moves across Steve’s lips. “Mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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**Author's Note:**

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